


The Art of Saying Goodbye

by lost_decade



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 13:01:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13031682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_decade/pseuds/lost_decade
Summary: At the start of 2017 Nico and Lewis are barely speaking. By the end of the year they're closer than they ever could've imagined





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this in January when I was still very sad about Nico's retirement. Almost a year later, it's finally finished and I suppose I should stop procrastinating over the damn thing and just post it. Massive thanks to Sarah and Nino for the advice and feedback on this, I'm aware I've spent most of the year yelling about it in the pub. 
> 
> This is mostly canon compliant, although I had to take a few liberties as Lewis and Nico have only been seen together about three times this year and that doesn't really make for a relationship. Tbh they provided enough inspiration as I don't think even I could've dreamed up the ultimate fic scenario of 'Nico ran after me when I was jogging in London'.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy, and I hate asking for comments but this fic is pretty special to me so I'd love some opinions. :)

Abu Dhabi. 27.11.16

Nico’s hands are shaking, his heart beating erratically in a way that it never normally does before a race and his stomach joining in too, making him feel as though he might throw up just to top things off. He won’t, of course, but no amount of trying to trick himself into believing this is just like any other race is going to work today. He’s exhausted already from such little sleep, existing purely on adrenaline and memory - he knows how to drive a Formula One car, he knows how to win a race. Although winning is really not...he just wants to do enough, to have a clean race and come out the other side of it having achieved what has sometimes felt insurmountable over the last couple of seasons. He just doesn’t want to fuck it up. Perhaps naively he’d hoped that with the arrival of race day his nerves might have dissipated a little, but faced with it now that seems kind of ridiculous. He grips the steering wheel tighter, glancing ahead and to the side at the sister silver arrow and trying to clear his mind. His thoughts keep drifting back to the press conference a couple of days ago and the things that Lewis had said, the memories that had shifted to the surface. Was it some attempt to unsettle him? Probably, but that’s typical Lewis, and that’s just how things are between them now, how things have been for a long time.

The sun is just starting to go down as they start the formation lap, Nico sweating in the dry desert air as he tries to get some heat into his tyres, feeling the pressure bearing down on him in a way it never has before – not even in 2014. This is it, he knows. This is perhaps the only chance he’ll ever have, the closest he’ll ever come and damn he can’t think, can’t focus on his start procedure, on anything.

It’s only as the lights go out on the grid that it hits him – this could be the very last time he does this in his entire life. That’s what makes the nerves, along with everything else, fade away.

 

***

Part I. _We're Not Friends_

 

Nico squints against the glare of the unseasonably warm winter sun, closing his eyes and leaning back into the relative comfort of the sun-lounger, letting the book in his hand fall the short distance to the floor with a yawn. Eating. He’s very much looking forward to more eating. Not so much the cooking, but he’ll give it a go. He looks great in an apron, Vivian has assured him of this.

“He retires and now all he does is sleep. Pfft I don’t know.”

Eyes open, Nico reaches for his sunglasses, slipping them on and swinging his legs over the edge of the lounger, sun-warmed tiles pleasant beneath his bare feet. He wiggles his toes, accepting the glass of champagne that his dad is thrusting at him.

“It’s Christmas, an afternoon nap is perfectly acceptable.”

The champagne is delicious, light and creamy, a decent vintage. The bubbles fizz on his tongue and yeah this is not what his retirement is going to be but in the short term it’s really damn enjoyable.

“I thought you quit.” Nico gestures at the cigar held casually between Keke’s thumb and forefinger, breathing in the heavy aroma of it. It reminds him of that night in Abu Dhabi, his dad producing the finest Cuban from his pocket, the one that he’d been saving for so many years for the moment when his only son emulated his own achievement.

“It’s Christmas,” the Finn retorts, taking a seat beside Nico.

Ibiza is a great place to spend the holiday, laid back and filled with memories of his childhood. He hopes he can help create some for Alaïa too, strengthen the bond between them now that he'll be around more.

Keke slings an arm around Nico’s shoulder and he can almost feel the build up to the imparting of wisdom. Keke doesn’t really give advice anymore after a few rather contentious issues in Nico’s early days in F1 that had riled them both enough that manager and driver went back to being a much more harmonious father and son, but occasionally there’s the odd pearl.

“You may not think it now,” Keke begins, “but there’ll be times when you’ll regret it. As long as you’re prepared for that then you’ll be okay.”

“I’m prepared, dad. Really.”

“Good.” Keke pats him on the back. “I’m very proud, you know that.”

Nico knows. He’s there, he’s made it, after so many years and so much disappointment he’s exactly where he wants to be.

If he’s honest it does feel quite easy at first, almost like an extended holiday. It’s winter break anyway and Nico finds himself still doing most of the things he normally does during the break, minus the visits to the factory. He still trains, not quite as relentlessly as before – no more neck torture, thank fuck – but he’s no stranger to the gym. It’s almost like it doesn’t feel real. The World Champion part, yes. He’s just about got used to that, but the rest of it, the idea that he won’t be on the starting grid in Melbourne, that hasn’t fully sunk in yet. It seems far off though, like he’s still in his own bubble of joy and slight disbelief.

They stay out in Ibiza until long after the tree has come down and the year has ticked over into 2017. It’s perfect, a way to let himself unwind slowly, enjoy the heat of the winter sun, long walks along the beach, Bailey bounding off into the distance and Alaïa trying to keep up with him, giggling as the water rushes over her feet, sand soft between her tiny toes.

Vivian had put it to him that they should start trying for another baby almost the second he retired, and it feels as if everything has fallen into alignment.  On their last night in the house in Dalt Vila before returning to Monaco she kisses him hard, unclipping her bra as she climbs astride him.  Nico doesn't think he’ll ever get over this, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, the way she moans his name. There’s lucky and then there’s what he’s got. If he was Lewis, he’d probably start talking about being blessed.

It’s only when they get back to Monaco that he starts to feel a little unsettled. The listlessness creeps up on him slowly, somewhere in between lazy days with the family and bath-time with Alaïa. Between bedtime stories that she’s too young to really take in and business meetings with his old friend Francesco over some of the ideas they’re working on for the future. It’s not that he’s bored, far from it - it’s just a sense of displacement, of not knowing what comes next. There’s a fine line between panic and excitement and he’s just about skirting the right side of it. It’s just - something is missing. Still missing. Even though he’s World Champion. It’s unexpected, even though he supposes it shouldn't be. You can't just go from flat out for twenty weekends a year to a life without any adrenaline at all.

That slightly empty feeling that he’s carried with him through the years of racing, being away from home so many weeks of the year hasn’t entirely gone away. He’s always attributed it to homesickness and to spending time apart from Vivian. But now she’s at his side and they eat together each evening, they fall asleep on the sofa in front of wildlife documentaries only to be woken by the baby monitor springing into action. His childhood dream has been realised and there are no more puzzle pieces to fit together. This is it. This is what he’s always wanted. And yet… staring into the chasm of the future is terrifying, and what now? He’s reached the peak, and it may seem clinical but surely that’s when the best time is to call it a day.

It makes sense that it'll be weird for a while, Vivian tells him, the sudden shift in his life after so many years of racing. He knows she’s right of course. That’s what he puts it down to. And it isn’t that difficult to push those feelings of uncertainty to one side, not when the sun is shining on the Cote d’Azur and Alaïa smiles at him as if he’s the most important person in the world. She is his adventure now. She clings to him when he hands her to his mum the day they leave for Geneva and the IWC event.

“We’ve managed to secure Bottas,” Toto had told him over the phone the day before. Nico had concurred that the Finn was a good choice; yet reading between the lines he knows that Toto hasn’t had an easy few weeks, that it would have been easier for perhaps everyone if he’d stayed.

***

The IWC Gala is always an event Nico enjoys, even if it is obligatory as part of his role at Mercedes. He's still like a kid in a sweetshop every time he comes here, eyes gleaming at the sight of the array of timepieces on display, the most exquisite craftsmanship imaginable. He smiles and poses for photographs, wrist displayed. It’s an enjoyable day, mingling and chatting to people, a few interviews with Georg at his side. In the evening he changes into a tuxedo, Vivian at his side for the gala dinner. It’s a beautiful event and for a moment he almost forgets that he’s here as someone who used to be a racing driver, rather than someone who _is._

He’s aware that Lewis is in attendance, yet they’ve managed to go the whole day without seeing each other - which given the size of the event isn’t all that surprising. He hasn’t sought Lewis out, so there’s no reason why the Brit should have come looking for him either.

When they do meet it’s late in the evening, after the dinner when everyone’s had a few glasses of wine, the dim lighting and soulful music almost soporific. There are photographers around, or Nico gets the impression that Lewis might just have kept on walking past him and Vivian without even stopping.

“Hey, Vivian!” He’s all charm as he leans in and kisses Vivian on the cheek. Nico can't help but notice Lewis’ omittance of her nickname, as if they're strangers rather than people who were once close, and really, must Vivi endure Lewis’ pettiness as well. Nico bristles at the ridiculousness of it all, standing back and looking away as they chat to each other.

When Lewis eventually seems to remember that Nico is there, he turns to his former teammate with a smile that Nico can tell is completely disingenuous, nodding in greeting rather than offering up a handshake or embrace. It reminds Nico of a few months back when they’d been urged to shake hands after a press conference and Lewis point blank refused as if he was going to catch some hideous illness. He hangs back in much the same manner now, as if there’s an invisible barrier around Nico's body that stops him from getting too close. Something in Nico’s heart sinks at that. Naïvely he’d hoped things would be different now that they’re no longer rivals. It’s not as if he doesn’t have plenty of friends, but there’s a nostalgia around him and Lewis that has never quite died. Maybe it’s because Lewis was there right at the start. Whatever, though. It doesn’t matter to him now. If Lewis still can’t get over losing to him then screw him.  It's at that point that one of the photographers spots them, eagerly hustling them into posing together for the camera, Vivian in between the two of them as though she’s the only thing that will stop them from punching each other.

“I wish you two would talk to each other,” she says, when Lewis has moved on to talk to Patrick Stewart across the room.

“I’ve tried. I’ve mentioned several times that I’m open to being friends with him again. He’s made his position quite clear. And honestly, Vivi, look at him.” They both glance over. “He’s not the same. The tattoos, the clothes, the way he lives his life. He’s a celebrity. I don’t know...”

Vivian frowns. “Maybe that’s who he wants to be, but people don’t change, not deep down.

Remember your birthday, when he ended the night throwing up on the pavement outside the club in tears because the girl he was with went off with another guy. He’s sensitive, he just masks it better now.”

Nico’s had a lot of birthdays and has tried his best to erase the memory of Lewis taking any part in them - which okay, he hasn't been entirely successful at.

“It was your eighteenth. He made me promise not to tell you the full story at the time, he didn’t want to ruin your night. And he was embarrassed obviously.”

Nico remembers it vaguely though, the hot brunette that Lewis had been mildly obsessed with.

“She was clearly out of his league, at the time anyway.”

“Even so, I don’t think it’s beyond fixing with you two, that’s all. He’s still the same person. And you’ve mentioned it in interviews, not to him personally,” Vivian places her clutch down on the table emphatically.

“It’s the same thing,” Nico replies, stubbornly.

“We both know it’s not the same thing. Anyway, dance with me?” She offers Nico her hand. He takes it, guiding her onto the dancefloor.

Neither of them notice when Lewis takes a seat at the bar, sipping his drink slowly, frowning as he watches them.   

***

Insomnia is a cruel visitor as the winter stretches on, it torments Nico with thoughts of if’s and when’s. Outwardly he throws himself into retirement. After the Gala he kisses Vivian goodbye and heads straight on to Davos for the WEF. The snow-capped mountains provide a stunning backdrop, and it’s hard to not be wowed by it. He gives a talk in the morning, fitting in seamlessly among the world’s elite as he talks passionately about motivation, about the power of self-belief and how to take the positives from any situation. It’s not always something he’s managed to do, but his path is clear now. It's easy to forget he's not actually an entrepreneur - not yet anyway - and Georg ends up having to talk him out of throwing a load of cash into a start-up with the express intention being to be able to say _this is what I'm doing now_ every time someone shoves a mic in his face and asks him if he's regretting giving up racing.

Interviewed at the top of the Rinerhorn that morning, he proclaims almost literally that he’s on top of the world and only half unintentionally pours scorn on the idea that anyone with a family as wonderful as his would rather be driving around in circles than spending time at home. In the evening there are drinks and some ill-thought out karaoke in the piano bar of the hotel. He even cajoles Georg and Mika into singing, the three of them belting out We Are The Champions in a way that might have seemed like they were over-lauding it had they not been quite so drunk and in the moment. Georg collapses against him in a fit of laughter afterwards, pulling him into a hug at the end of the evening and even the drop in temperature the next morning does nothing to dampen Nico’s spirits. As long as he doesn’t stop to question himself too much, he’s fine. And if he finds he can’t sleep too well on a Saturday night then at least it’s not because he’s wondering whether or not Lewis is going to try and force him off the track at turn one every other Sunday.

Maybe this is how everyone feels who lives a normal life, he reasons as he lies awake one night; mid-February and only a week until the first test in Barcelona. He turns and the sheet gets tangled around his ankles, Vivian stirring beside him and the thought manifesting in his mind, a terrible nagging doubt. What if he made the wrong decision. What if he gets to the track and walks into the garage and it feels all wrong. What if he finds that he wants, no, needs, to be in that car ready to fight to keep his title for another year. What if, when Alaïa’s older she’s disappointed in him for not having the guts to keep going. He knows that these are useless thoughts though, much the same as the ones he used to have towards the end of 2016 when the title was so close and he was so afraid it would all be snatched away again. That old familiar 3am anxiety.

He slips from the sheets, looking in on his daughter before walking through into the lounge, touching a hand to the trophy as if it’s as much his child as Alaïa is. Sinking down onto the sofa his eyes are still drawn to it, a sliver of moonlight from outside bouncing off the metal. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but the streets in his mind are alive with the excitement of a race weekend. The next morning he drives them for real, dropping Alaïa off at the same nursery that he once went to, trying to stay awake.   


	2. Chapter 2

London is typical wintry grey, the air chill and damp, early morning drizzle falling lightly from murky skies. It’s decent running weather, Lewis surmises as he closes the door of the Marylebone apartment, stepping out onto the slippery cobbles of the mews. It’s just gone 6:30 and the streets are still fairly quiet, yet to be assailed by the hordes of commuters - just the occasional dog walker and early morning jogger out and about. He presses play on his iPhone, feet pounding the pavement as he runs through Fitzrovia, taking the back streets and alleyways past rows of immaculate Georgian terraces and down towards St James’s Park.

There’s a group of exchange students gathered on the pavement talking loudly in French huddled around an assortment of suitcases. Lewis slows his pace to avoid them, that sixth sense of awareness kicking in as he realises someone is following closely behind him. A touch on his shoulder and he’s turning, expecting a fan to be standing there, preparing himself to click into _on_ mode. Smiles and selfies. _I need to start sayin' shit when I notice it/be open with people I need some closure with_ , Drake’s voice is in his ear as Lewis finds himself face to face with Nico.

The moment is so surreal that Lewis doesn’t react straight away, just stares at him standing there in the rain, dressed smartly in a charcoal suit and wool coat – not in running gear.

He tries to catch his breath, thoughts racing – what the hell is he doing here – and then realises that Nico is actually speaking to him. He pulls his earphones out. “I thought it was you,” Nico repeats. “I was in the car and then there you were, just running past. I couldn’t believe it.” Lewis can’t quite believe it either, but he can’t just stand there in silence.

What are the chances though, of living in the same building and not seeing each other there in months, only to find each other randomly in the street in a city of eight million people? “What are you doing here, man?” he asks when he’s caught his breath and come to his senses.

“I have some meetings. You?”

“Yeah, uh, I’m at the factory tomorrow, so…good to see you.”

It feels so, so awkward Lewis thinks, more so even than at the IWC event because at least then he was prepared and the setting was such that he could keep all of the shit in his head on lockdown.

Before, when they were teammates it was awkward because of that, but now they’re not teammates yet things can’t go back to how they used to be, not so quickly. Maybe not ever. And fuck, that hurts, seeing Nico standing there expectantly like the friendless twelve-year-old kid he’d once been. Lewis tries to imagine the year ahead with Bottas on the other side of the garage and tells himself the only reason he feels sick is that he’s really pushed himself on this run.

“You’re enjoying it then, retirement? I thought I was attached to the trophy last time but fuck you’ve hardly let it out of your sight from what I heard. Wait, you didn’t leave it in a taxi, did you?”

Nico smiles. “Georg is taking good care of it,” he replies. “And yeah, retirement is – it’s taking some getting used to but I’m happy.”

“Great! Better for me too, man, no way I’m gonna get so much stress off Bottas.”

If Lewis didn’t know Nico quite so well he probably wouldn’t have noticed the little flinch that elicited, the change in his body language. They both know he’s only half joking. Lewis kicks at the edge of the kerb with his sneaker, feeling the conversation slip away.

“Well, erm...” Nico begins and this is the _bye, see you around_ that Lewis was half pushing for. Nico hesitates though, indecision in his eyes and then: “I have some time before my meeting if you wanted to get a coffee?”

Fuck, this is the olive branch that Lewis cannot quite accept. “I can’t.” He doesn’t bother to offer an explanation. He knows it’s wrong, that this isn’t Nico’s fault and that it’s cruel to try and punish him for things he doesn’t even know about. He needs to have some defences though.

“Right, sure of course. I guess I’ll see you around sometime then,” Nico says, solemnly.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Lewis replies. Nico is hurt and Lewis knows it, he wishes Nico would just fucking hide it better. _You should’ve just stayed in the car,_ Lewis wants to say, but that’s lower than he’s willing to go, especially with all that’s been on his mind over the winter – or maybe in spite of.

The rain has eased off a little, even as the sky remains dull with the promise of more of it. Lewis watches him walk away, a stranger in a lonely street. The group of French teenagers are still there, larking around and talking loudly. Nico has to step into the road to avoid a couple of boys, one of whom has the other in an enthusiastic headlock.

He turns back then, almost as if he knew that Lewis would still be standing there watching him leave.  

***

“You've been quiet today.”

Nico looks up from his phone, taking a sip from the glass of mineral water and turning to look at Georg. They're at the hotel bar beneath the heaters on the roof, looking out over Barceloneta. Georg worries about him. It's kind of nice most of the time, knowing someone's got your back.

“Yeah, just…” Just what? Truthfully, he doesn't feel ready to be here at testing. Or rather, he wishes there was a little more time, that the break could stretch on just a little longer until he's sure enough of the direction his life is going in before he sets foot in the paddock again.

“I don't know, Georg. Just nostalgia I guess, you know.”

There's fondness in Georg's eyes as he leans over and pats Nico's arm. “I know. You'll be fine tomorrow though.” God, is he really that transparent?

“I know.” He thinks of Lewis, of their meeting in London. That's the real source of his discomfort, not knowing if they'll see each other, how it'll be. “Listen, I'm calling it a night,” Georg signals to the bartender to settle up. “Don't stay too long, yeah.”

Just one more drink, Nico decides, just to help him sleep.

It doesn't exactly work. When he gets back to the room he spends a stupid amount of time dicking around online before any thoughts of sleep even cross his mind. Eventually he slips beneath the crisp white sheets, uploading the photo he’s just taken to his Instagram, putting his excitement about testing out there for the world to see before placing his phone face down on the bedside table and switching out the light.

It feels weird. That’s the honest truth and he doesn’t know really why he expected anything less.

On the face of it this evening was fine, just another corporate event the same as all the rest; Toto at his side as he took the questions with a well-practiced grace. It’s easy to talk about the technology, it’s the other stuff that’s getting harder to go over again and again – the questions about his resilience and mental strength. His racing career is a closed chapter and he’s trying hard to get used to that. It isn’t so easy when it feels as though every journalist is conspiring to pull some seeds of self-doubt from every interview or worried look that crosses his face. He can’t tell them that Vivian is in the early stages of pregnancy and wracked with morning sickness again or that he's restless about the future. You smile and get on with it. A life in the spotlight has taught him that.

Being an ambassador for the team is light work really on the face of it; drinks receptions and a few motivational speeches, slipping from one language to the next like the chameleon he’s become. Part of being a champion is being loved and Nico has spent a lifetime cultivating approval, trying to show that he’s worthy of it. He has it now, he’s done it. These are the things he’d talked about this evening. How to make it when the odds are stacked against you, how to stop your rivals from breaking your spirit. But the glass of champagne he’d accepted earlier that evening hadn’t tasted the same as it used to on the podium. He’d swallowed it down as if it was water.

Familiarly it's past 2am when he finally succumbs to an exhausted sleep. Thoughts of visiting the track the next morning spin through his head, of how it will feel to be a bystander in something that was once his entire life.

In the morning he slips his sunglasses on, the Barcelona sun softly warming on his skin as he walks to the car. Georg smiles brightly at him and not for the first time he feels a pang of something; his team, his core support network is now splintered and he can’t help but feel responsible for his decisions impacting on their lives. Georg misses the world of F1 but he’ll never truly know how it feels for Nico, just as Vivian won’t. Unless you’ve raced that car, experienced all the glory and defeat, you’ll never know how it feels to walk away.

“Let’s do this.” He’s projecting as much confidence as possible to Georg, when really his insides are a knot of nerves. It sort of feels like a dream.  He hugs his old engineers and films the new car from inside the garage, touching a steady hand to the bodywork. It isn’t his car, the number 77 where once would’ve been a 6. He’s done his time, lived it and enjoyed it, fought through it. He can’t imagine driving the W08 and being that person again. That part of himself has gone, a quick but smooth goodbye. And there’s a sense of almost displacement in being here; Champion revisiting a world that has moved on. He’ll be part of it somehow, someday, but it won’t be the same. He won’t be the same. It’s a difficult thing to face, even as he’s secure in his decision. No regrets, which is perfect. That’s what he tells the media. That’s what he tells himself.

It hadn’t consciously been a plan to avoid Lewis. More that he’d wanted to visit the track when his old side of the garage were there, of course working on Valtteri’s car. It’s no surprise that he’s asked about the Brit though. As always, everywhere. The media can’t let their relationship lie, always digging for the truth of how they feel.

Nico stopped trying to figure Lewis out years ago. There seems little point. It’s easier to accept that some friendships don’t last forever and just let it go rather than trying to cling onto the embers and keep it alive. Part of Nico still hopes. There are memories that shimmer just beneath the surface that no one else knows the beauty of other than Lewis; times they shared that sometimes fill Nico with nostalgia, the aching innocence of being young. He’s buried all those memories in recent years, necessary for focus and keeping weakness out of the equation. Yet whenever he’s been asked about the possibility of that door reopening in recent months since the win, he’s thrown out a glimmer of hope. Part of him misses Lewis, but he wonders if the Lewis he knew back then still exists at all. If maybe he’s buried deep, just waiting to emerge once both of them are retired. Or maybe he’s gone forever. Nico wonders why he even cares, especially after London and Lewis’ attitude.

It’s just one of those things, Lewis arriving to the track a little early and Nico getting held up with interviews a while longer than he’d anticipated. They pass behind the Mercedes motorhome, Lewis with his earphones in and head down. For a moment Nico thinks Lewis is just going to keep walking, ignoring him completely, but he stops suddenly as they get closer together, pulling the earphones out.

“Hey,” Nico says, and it feels even more awkward than in London. One World Champion to another.

“Hey man, how’re you doing?” It’s odd, they’re both wearing sunglasses and Nico finds himself wishing that he could see Lewis’ eyes, could tell what was going on in his head.

“Yeah, good. The car looks awesome, it’s great to---”

“I heard you spoke to Valtteri,” Lewis cuts him off. His tone is accusatory and Nico remembers for the umpteenth time: _we’re not friends._  

“We had a chat, yeah. Briefly. I didn’t give anything away if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Lewis looks around. They’re alone.

“There’s nothing you could give him, is there. Whatever secrets you think you have, it’s bullshit. If you’re here trying to disrupt my focus it’s not going to work.”

“I’m still part of the team, Lewis,” Nico replies. “You think I’m just going to disappear to make it easier for you? I hoped…” he trails off.

“We’re not going to just immediately be friends again because you’ve retired, Nico. Be realistic.” Lewis’ tone is not unkind, but the words sting more than Nico would have anticipated, the death of a fragile little hope.

“Sure. I didn't expect we would,” Nico replies, “but I wouldn’t underestimate him if I was you.”

“You beat me one time and you think you know everything.” It’s said jokily, but there’s bitterness underneath.

You were my best friend, Nico thinks. Look at us now.

“If you want to know what I said to him -  I told him you’re _almost_ unbeatable, because the win is the only thing in the world that you truly care about. You have nothing else. It’s kind of sad when you think about it.” Nico smiles as he says it, but it strikes him at the same time that it’s probably true. He’s angry with himself for even having bothered in London. What the fuck was the point.

“Whatever, man,” Lewis laughs. “I guess I’ll see you around then.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll stick to his side of the garage if you have no intention of being civil.” Nico starts to walk away. Lewis curses under his breath, wringing his hands together.

“Wait. Nico look, this isn't how I wanted things to go, okay. Hey, stop for a moment.”

Nico turns to him with a sigh. “Why do you always have to make things so difficult, Lewis?” he asks in exasperation.

“I’m not trying to make things difficult, I just. Fuck, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to talk about this now, I have to get to the garage.”

Nico bites his lip, watching him carefully. “If you want to talk to me you know where I am, but I’m done trying to make the first move. I’m willing to try but I need something back from you. You can’t walk all over me and expect me to take it.” Lewis opens his mouth to speak but then Valtteri rounds the corner and he figures that neither of them particularly want to have this discussion in front of the Finn. “I’ll see you around,” Nico says to Lewis.

“We’ll talk in Monaco, there’s stuff we need to talk about,” Lewis shouts after him, but Nico is already striding purposefully away.

He doesn’t hang around to watch as Lewis sits down on the steps for a few minutes, head turned to the sky in contemplation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you want to go out for brunch?” Nico asks Vivian suddenly, while it’s still going on and Sebastian is pouring another stream of champagne over Lewis’ head, wetting his sweat dampened curls. He doesn’t look so sad to have lost, Nico thinks briefly, larking around with Seb and laughing, smiling. Every time that Nico beat him he always looked completely heartbroken.

Just as he’d intended to Nico rises early to watch the first race of the first season he hasn’t been a part of in more than ten years on TV. The alarm goes off and he drags himself from the warmth of his bed, the sun not yet up. He stands before the coffee machine, gripping the sparkling granite of the worktop as it whirs into action. The Melbourne sunshine beams brightly into the darkness of his apartment as he takes it all in, the buzz and intensity of the pits, the anticipation. The Mercedes garage falls into view, a chill that belies the mild Monaco dawn shuddering through Nico's body. It settles in his stomach like a dead weight, only growing when the camera pans across Valtteri’s name above one side of the garage, beside the flag that was once Nico’s own so many years ago.

He sips his espresso, the bitter liquid still scalding against his lips, watching as Lewis stands serious-faced beside the W08. He qualified on pole, just as Nico had anticipated he would, so the nervous tension that clearly thrums through his body is perhaps unwarranted, but Nico can see it nonetheless. He watches as Lewis glances over to the other car, where Nico used to be, before wringing his hands together and looking directly up at the monitor.

Nico allows himself this, with the security of a few thousand miles. He allows himself to actually look at Lewis properly for the first time in what might be years. What he sees terrifies him so much that he reaches for the remote control, turning the screen to black as the sun pushes its way through the hazy morning sky. He sits for what feels like an age, just looking at the blank screen and letting it all rush over him. It isn’t that he wants to be there, or feels that he should be, it’s more a sense of confusion and dazed misunderstanding like that time he crashed badly in Formula Three all those years ago and opened his eyes wondering if this was death, blinking rapidly as he tried to remember where he was through the haze. It was almost as if his soul had stepped from his body for a moment and was looking over at him, watching and willing him to put the pieces back together.

That’s a little of how it feels now and he looks around as if he can feel someone’s eyes on him, urging him to figure out the right thing to do. Then he hears movement coming from the bedroom and knows that Vivian is up, that she’ll be in with Alaïa in just a moment to watch the race as a family. Alaïa, who always points at the television or whichever book or magazine he has open every time there’s a picture of a Formula One car, pointing at it and then back at him with a sweet sing-song voiced _Papa_.

Except that isn’t Papa anymore, not now. He switches the TV back on, picks up his phone and soon after takes a picture of the three of them gathered in front of it, Lewis’ face on the screen in the background and Nico’s insides blossoming with a pain that makes no sense at all to him, heart leaping and shuddering through a series of angry contractions each time the graphic flashes up on the screen with _Hamilton - Team Radio_. He watches it all with a feeling of otherworldliness, especially the podium which produces a sensation akin to the one people get sometimes when looking through photos of long dead relatives or ancestors from a hundred years past who appear to be carbon copies of themselves; in this case different hair, skin, eyes, but the same overalls and the same space occupied up there being interviewed by Mark Webber. Bottles clinking together and smiles and an arm around the waist.

“Do you want to go out for brunch?” Nico asks Vivian suddenly, while it’s still going on and Sebastian is pouring another stream of champagne over Lewis’ head, wetting his sweat dampened curls. He doesn’t look so sad to have lost, Nico thinks briefly, larking around with Seb and laughing, smiling. Every time that Nico beat him he always looked completely heartbroken. Switching off the television for good this time, he breathes a sigh of something, not relief but what it is he’s unsure of.

***

Sochi is never really somewhere that Lewis is keen to race at, for numerous reasons that he’s never felt the need to go into with anyone. The entire weekend is a struggle, overheating issues destroying any chance he might’ve had to push hard enough to close the gap to Sebastian. The vodka at least is good in Russia and one or two in the hotel bar isn’t going to hurt.

“Not out celebrating your teammate’s win?” Sebastian asks, slipping into the booth opposite Lewis, uninvited.

“Can’t all be as loved up as you and Kimi, man. Bromance of the fucking century.”

“You’re just jealous you never managed to stay friends with any of your teammates.” Sebastian is joking, clearly, but there are some things that should just not be touched. Lewis frowns at him. “Are you planning to buy me a drink or did you just come over here to piss me off?”

It was probably a bit of both, but to his credit Seb does get another round in, the two of them drinking in silence. Lewis _is_ pleased for Valtteri, despite not going out to celebrate with him. You never forget your first win in Formula One, that kind of thing is special and stays with you forever. There are driver changes every year and Lewis is used to faces coming and going, the rookies getting younger while everyone else starts getting called ‘veterans’ and shit like that. Seeing Valtteri up there on the top step had been a nice moment for the team, but it also had stung. Every passing weekend the past is further away and the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field so much smaller than in previous years. Lewis wonders now why they didn’t make the most of it in those three years of dominance, him and Nico. Why didn’t they hang out together like they used to, like Seb and Kimi still do? Why did it stop being fun and start being a competition to destroy each other instead of just winning?

“Did you see Nico in Barcelona, at testing?” Lewis asks after they’ve drunk a couple more.

“What, Hulkenberg, you mean.”

“Nico. _My_ Ni--” Fuck, what is he saying. “Rosberg,” he clarifies.

“No. I heard he was there, but I was kind of busy. And I don’t think he’s looking for a Ferrari drive so uh no. You did?”

“Iwasadicktohim,” Lewis mumbles, knocking back the remains of his vodka diet coke. He glances up at the TV in the corner of the bar for a moment, rolling international news covering the story about gay men being imprisoned and tortured a few hours drive away in Chechnya. He looks away, shivering.

“Why were you a dick, what did you say to him?”

“That I didn’t want to be friends. Some other stuff, I don’t know. He can be so fucking smug sometimes. I think he wants to be friends again.”

“And you don’t?”

“How can you be friends with someone when you never see them, when you live a totally different life? How do you manage it with Hanna?”

Seb gives him a really weird look that Lewis can’t for the life of him figure out and shit has he said too much here.

“Well I love her, so we work it out. All the time I have between races I’m with her and the girls at home. That’s how it works. And you have friends who have nothing to do with racing, right?”

“Well, yeah. But most of the time they travel with me.”

“No room on your jet for one more?”

“Yeah I don’t think that’s really what he had in mind, man. Maybe I’ll borrow my godson for the weekend and go hang out at the crèche with him and his family.” That really wasn’t as bitter in his head. And confiding in Sebastian like this is probably not a good idea.

“Be friends with him or don’t be friends with him,” Sebastian says, as if it’s that simple. “Obviously it’s on your mind.”

Lewis grins at him. “Winning my fourth title is the only thing that’s on my mind, don’t forget it.”

“Sure it is. Well, I’m calling it a night. See you next time round.”

“Yeah, cheers for the drink.”

“No problem, nice talking.”

And yeah, it was nice talking, Lewis thinks once Seb’s left. Probably not the best idea to be sharing a drink and a chat with your main title rival, but the truth is he’s lonely.

***

“We should go to Portofino for your birthday,” Nico suggests, looking out at the preparations going on for the ePrix. If he leaves town when the F1 is on it will look like he’s purposely avoiding it and people will definitely talk, however there’s no reason to stick around for the Formula E and if he’s honest the whole thing just makes him feel unsettled. A race weekend in Monaco is impossible to avoid if you live there and the last thing he wants really is to be around racing, no matter what the formulae. Maybe later in the year but not yet.

“Sure,” Vivian replies, “we could take your parents as well for Mother’s Day. Hey, come and feel - baby’s kicking.” She beckons him over, reaching for his hand and placing it on her belly. He smiles at the sensation, curling up beside her on the couch, her fingers playing softly through his hair. “I’m going to be a great dad this time around, I promise.” He’ll do all the things that racing prevented him from doing the first time. This is who he is now.

“You’re already a great dad,” Vivian says, frowning.

Nico feels instantly calmer as soon as they arrive in Italy a few days later. It’s the relaxing getaway that he’d hoped for and walking along the waterfront with Alaïa holding his hand, stopping off for gelato after mother’s day lunch, he feels like he must have done something right. He’s made them so happy, he thinks as Vivian smiles and leans in to kiss his cheek. They wouldn’t have been able to do this before, he would’ve been in the car in Barcelona right now. He hasn’t checked on the race result but when he does later that evening he gets that shivery out of body sensation again. The images show Lewis and Seb with their arms around each other, smiles wide on the podium – loving the fight. It seems hard for Nico to imagine that he was ever part of it.

-

“We should make the announcement just before the Monaco race I think,” Georg says a few days later, placing his phone down on the table. They’re in the Ruhmservice offices in Hamburg and it always seems to Nico that Georg is different here, more self-assured. Not that he isn’t usually of course, it’s just that this is the company he’s created and he seems so at home here behind the desk in a way that Nico can’t imagine ever being sitting at any desk anywhere.

“Do you think so?” He leans back into the sofa, studying Georg carefully.

“Look at it this way, the press already have wind of it. If you do it before the race weekend then it reinforces your entire ethos behind retirement. You did it for your family and here you are announcing the new baby. If you wait they’ll continue to speculate and the media will be more vicious with their questions. Someone asks you on race day if you’re secretly full of regret – you say no, of course. But they push for it, for the one comment, the seed of doubt. You say no and talk about your excitement about the baby and it gives them something else. It backs everything up, and it’s after the early high-risk months yes. Trust me.”

“I do trust you. Just…” he does trust Georg, that’s the thing. Georg and Vivian – and possibly his dad at the right moment – are the people that he trusts the most in the world. “I’m so fucking nervous, Georg,” he admits. “On TV it’s different, but being there in the paddock - and its Monaco, I don’t know how I’m going to feel and there’s nowhere to hide. It’s just…” He’s scared, and it’s one of the things he’s always hated in himself. What if he wants it back, what if it’s all just too much and he can’t hold that mask up for the world. Austin 2015 enters his mind briefly and it’s such a shitty thought that he berates himself even for the memory of it. He hadn’t been able to contain it all after the race, the pre-podium, the interviews; it was that utter agony inside of cracking with the entire world watching and not being able to keep up the façade and pretend he wasn’t in such awful pain that he wanted to shake Lewis to see if he could bring some of his teenage self back to the surface.

He can never let himself go in front of the eyes of the world like that again and more than anything it frightens him that Lewis is going to take one look at him and know exactly how he’s feeling inside.

There’s a tiny bit of guilt there though at the thought of using his unborn child as an excuse to field off questions about his retirement. But Georg is right. He can’t think of many occasions when Georg hasn’t been right.

“Okay,” he agrees. “If you set it up with Paul we can take some photos in the apartment on Friday before we head to Corsica.”

“Sure. The race will be fine, I’ll be there, Vivian will be there. Just let me handle everything, set up the interviews.”

“Okay, sure. I’ll talk to Vivi about the announcement tonight. There’s still a couple of friends I think she’d like to tell personally first.”

“Great, I’ll talk to Paul and we do the announcement, maybe a filming about how excited you are to be attending the race, seeing your fans again. Talk about your past successes there.” He smiles. “It’ll be great, what the fans want.”

Georg embraces him as he leaves the office, eschewing the usual handshake. And that more than anything tells Nico just how obvious his nerves about all this must be.        

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhh so this is probably my least favourite chapter in terms of how it hangs together, but there are a few individual scenes I like so yeah...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lewis really has no idea now how to fix things. Nico in his eternal optimism still seems to think it’s possible. Sebastian had spoken of it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, but Lewis can’t seem to get over all the hurdles in his mind. Being civil and nice in public is one thing, but having Nico show up at his door in the motorhome after such a tough weekend for the team is too much.

Antibes on a summer evening is nothing short of spectacular, the Hotel du Cap exuding the kind of glamour that has made it famous for nearly a century. Nico smiles for the photographers, leaning in to kiss Vivian, one hand placed tenderly on her belly. He hasn’t attended the amfAR Gala for a couple of years, the proximity of the event to the Monaco Grand Prix meaning he’s always foregone it in favour of quiet nights resting and race preparation. Now that isn’t a concern and it’s nice to be able to go there, relaxed with Vivian at his side. His nerves about the race are still lingering below the surface but he feels good, happy to be there and mingle among the Hollywood elite, soaking up all the congratulations about the baby. Georg had been right about the timing of the announcement, of course.

During the drinks reception he can feel someone watching him, eyes on him from across the beautifully landscaped gardens. Nico turns, eyes meeting Lewis’, breath hitching a little. Of course he would be here; as always Lewis is in his element at this kind of event. They share a smile before Lewis turns his attention back to his conversation, laughing and joking with Leonardo Di Caprio as if they’re best friends. Nico isn’t expecting the irrational pang of jealousy he feels at that. It’s something that’s perplexed him in recent years, how Lewis can be such great friends with so many people but when it comes to the two of them they can barely hold a civil conversation even after all that they’ve been through together. Or maybe it’s _because_ of that. He really isn’t sure.

It’s much later in the evening when they find a moment to talk, Lewis seeking him out. There’s a touch on Nico’s shoulder and then there he is, always unique now in his fashion - black shirt and studded biker jacket in contrast to Nico in classic black tie. Nico almost asks him if he got the memo about the theme being Classic Hollywood but bites his tongue. They’re never going to get anywhere if they keep using every opportunity they can to needle each other. Although after their last interaction Nico doesn’t have much inclination to put any effort in to reconciling.

Despite what Lewis had said back in Barcelona they haven’t talked, even on the odd occasion when Nico has noticed on social media that he appeared to be in Monaco for a change there has been no contact. He’d kind of hoped for a knock at the door, some sort of movement towards a thaw in relations. It shouldn’t matter, it really shouldn’t. But Lewis is so much a part of his past that he can’t bear to give up altogether.

“Congratulations, man,” Lewis shakes Nico’s hand kind of stiffly before turning to kiss and congratulate Vivian, bestowing her with a dazzling smile. She looks around and then glances at Nico questioningly and oh god there’s no way this is going to stay a secret for another four months. Nico smiles and shrugs in response.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Vivian whispers conspiratorially, pulling Lewis close so they’re standing in their own little circle just the way they always used to when they went out clubbing together in their teens, “but it’s another girl.” She still trusts him, Nico realises.

“What, no way!” Lewis exclaims, drawing out the syllables. “That’s great.” He smiles widely, enveloping Vivian in a hug and whispering his congratulations.

“You're gonna be outnumbered, man. Her and Alaïa will be karting in no time,” he adds, glancing at Nico. “Just like we were.”

“I think the Rosberg racing dynasty is stopping with me, but thanks anyway,” Nico replies, trying to ignore the unease he feels. Complete fulfilment in retirement except for whenever Lewis is around, looking at him as if he can see straight through him. Nico would never admit that he’s scared, but he feels like Lewis knows.

It’s still surprising to Nico that even now they can read each other so well and there’s something awful about the feeling of being so exposed. It was what used to make their friendship work so well, the trust and affection and deep knowledge of each other. Lewis smiles and touches his shoulder and it’s like a light being switched on in a darkened room, a sudden startling realisation. It isn’t racing that he misses, it’s Lewis.

“Honestly, I’m really happy for you guys,” Lewis says, the warmth of his fingers filtering through Nico’s suit jacket. He looks Nico directly in the eyes when he says “you’ve got everything you want now.” And then he makes his excuses and leaves.

“You should talk to him,” Vivian says, slipping her hand into his.

“I just did.”

“Oh Nico,” she replies and he leans in to kiss her softly on the lips, silencing whatever she was going to say next.

 _Just like we were_ , Nico hears in his head for the rest of the evening. _Just like we were._

***

Lewis stays in the car after qualifying that Saturday in Monaco, hands flexing on the steering wheel as he looks out through his visor, the buzz of the garage a blur all around. It hasn’t been like this for a while, the feeling of wanting to just run away washes over him and this, here, is some awful nightmare that he’s stuck in at least for the next few hours until he can go home. His eyes sting a little with tears that he definitely has to stop from falling. Breathing deeply he tries to pull himself together - keeping his emotions to himself has always been a difficult task to master, he’s never been able to do that the way Nico can. Lewis wonders for a moment how his ex-teammate feels about this, if he’s up there in hospitality with a glass of champagne in hand and a smile on his face because all his decisions were so fucking prescient and of course it was right to get out before everything started to turn to shit. It’s Monaco. It’s thirteenth on the grid. The weekend is fucked already.

He pulls himself out of the car dejectedly, head spinning at the thought of facing the media.

“If Nico asks,” he says to Toto once his seemingly endless round of interviews are done, “tell him I don’t want to see him.”

Finally, hours later he escapes to the privacy of his apartment, sitting in front of the piano for a while as his fingers skim over the keys, not really playing anything coherent. He sits there till it’s late, the party atmosphere still in full swing throughout Monte Carlo. Nico is probably out there, enjoying it all safe in the knowledge he’ll never feel the disappointment of a bad race ever again. It must be nice. Or awful. Nico isn’t really giving much away - same repetitive _achieved all my goals_ bullshit. He drags himself to bed eventually, which is turning into a waste of time this year mostly. The insomnia is never easy, especially in recent months. Lewis isn’t a pessimistic person by nature but it’s hard not to let it all get so out of control in his head as he lies there staring into the darkness, Roscoe snoring at his side. It’s hard not to feel like the season is already getting away from him as he replays his shitty lap in Q2 over and over in his brain.

He gets up and walks through to the kitchen, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of Stoli and taking one long soothing gulp before regretfully placing it back in the cupboard. Partly he wants to just barricade himself in the apartment for the rest of the weekend and take the loss, not have to face Nico or the eyes of the world, but letting the team down isn’t an option and the chance to scrape even a couple of points is better than nothing. It’ll be over soon enough and then he can get away from Monaco and all the shit in his head.

When he finally does fall asleep just before dawn he dreams of Nicole and the day he finally left her, the hurt in her eyes.

***

Sixth is...it’s better than he could’ve hoped for at the start of the day, but his bad mood and lack of sleep has put him on edge, exacerbated by Nico’s presence. How do they do it? Lewis really has no idea now how to fix things. Nico in his eternal optimism still seems to think it’s possible. Sebastian had spoken of it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, but Lewis can’t seem to get over all the hurdles in his mind. Being civil and nice in public is one thing, but having Nico show up at his door in the motorhome after such a tough weekend for the team is too much.

“You said we’d talk,” Nico says when Lewis shows him into the room, sitting down on the sofa.

“Back in Barcelona, you said we needed to discuss things. Did you change your mind?”

Lewis sits beside him. He hasn’t changed out of his race suit yet and he still smells of the track, hair damp with sweat. Nico wonders for a moment how it feels to drive the 2017 car, how much adrenaline is still surging through Lewis’ blood right now.

“I didn’t change my mind. I just don’t know where to start. I don’t know how.”

“We can just forget it, if you want,” Nico says, so dismissively that it makes Lewis want to scream. “Just because we were friends in the past doesn’t mean we have to be now. If you don’t want to then just say.”

“Do you really think this is easy for me Nico,” Lewis snaps. “After everything that we’ve been through, ten fucking years of Formula One and all the rest of it. You think that I don’t miss you? You have no idea, man. You just walk away and give up on everything we worked so hard for and all I keep hearing is how fulfilled you are, how complete your life is now and I…I’m…” he pauses, rubbing a hand over his jaw, Nico looking on in shock.

“You’re what?”

Lewis clears his throat and turns away, fiddling with his phone as Nico stares at his profile. “Whatever I do it’s never enough, now,” Lewis replies, to himself as much as to Nico. “It’s never going to be enough. This weekend was just a fucking mess.”

Nico feels utterly bewildered watching him, a rare glimpse of all the cracks that Nico knows are in him, all the insecurities deep-seated and ageless. “It’s one race,” he says, “I know it hurts but there are plenty of chances, Lewis. There’s a long way to go.”

Lewis turns to him, half smiling. “Ahh, man,” he says almost laughing, “that’s what it is yeah. It’s all about one race.” He claps Nico on the back. “Course you don't get it.”

“What is it that I'm not getting, Lewis? I can't read your mind.”

“It's weird but I always thought you could,” Lewis says, looking him in the eye as if challenging him to do so right now. “I guess that's before we grew apart.”

 _Whose fault was that_ , Nico thinks. Although if he's being rational he knows that some of the blame lies with himself.

“Tell me what's going on with you then,” Nico urges him.

“Nothing’s going on, it’s just pressure.”

“You always dealt with the pressure before.”

“Yeah, well…” There’s only so much that Lewis is willing to give here.

“It’s been tough for me this weekend too, being here and not driving. You...you said you miss me?”

It wasn’t what Lewis had intended to say at all but fuck it, it’s out there now.

“It’s different without you. Everything’s different.”

“A couple of months ago I couldn’t even get you to come for a coffee with me.”

“Yeah well. I don’t even know how we’d be friends without you racing, it’s all that’s ever been between us. Without racing we would never have met, we’d be nothing.”

“Is that what you want us to be?”

“I don’t know what I want, Nico. This year just feels fucking crazy. I remember walking through this same paddock when we were fourteen and it’s like we already belonged here even then. It feels so long ago.”

“We had fun didn’t we,” Nico bumps his arm against Lewis’.

“Man, those were some of the best times.” Lewis wants that closeness back so badly, craves it even as the thought of it terrifies him. He’s in his thirties now, he’s tired of fighting, of keeping his cards so close to his chest all the time. “We've never been apart really, have we?” Lewis continues, “Not like this. Not...permanently.”

“I only live downstairs, Lewis.”

“So does Mrs Ritovsky with the Pekingese and I haven't seen her in a year and a half.”

Nico smiles but he gets it, what Lewis means. They've always gravitated towards each other, stars in the same stratosphere.

“Why did you retire?” Lewis presses. “Not the bullshit answers you give the media. This is us now. I don’t get it, Nico.”

Nico shifts around to face him properly, looking him in the eye.

“One title, like my dad. That was all I ever wanted.”

Lewis clenches and then unclenches his fist, bringing his hand up close to the side of Nico’s face, almost touching.

Nico’s skin prickles with the chill of the air conditioning. His eyes flutter closed for a moment, the heat of Lewis’ hand radiating, drawing him in. He swallows hard and turns away, standing and walking over to the water cooler, pouring himself a cup and sipping at it.

“Are you happy?”

Nico glances at him. “I’m World Champion, of course I’m happy.”

The words don’t quite sound true to Lewis, but how can they not be?

“It’s hard to adjust,” Nico continues. “It’s a lot, being a parent, and I want to be there properly this time. When the baby’s born I want to do all the things I missed out on with Alaïa. I’m trying to prepare myself for that, this time around. If you ever settle down then maybe you’ll get it.”

“Right. I forgot you’re still winning this imaginary battle you think is going on, because you’ve got a wife and family, that’s what you think… while I’m just driving round in circles.” Lewis laughs. “Really dude?”

Nico winces. “I don’t think that, not at all. We could be friends again, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, if we both try properly. I don’t know, Lewis, so much has changed. We’re both so different now, but I’m not saying it’s impossible. What if...what if you join me for tennis later in the week? I can book a court, we can spend some time, play a few games.”

“That’d be cool, as long as you won’t sulk if I beat you.”

Nico rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile lurking at the corners of his lips. This they both understand; friends is so far in the past but rivals is much more recent. It’s steady ground. “You’ve never beaten me at tennis, Lewis. Never.”

“There’s always a first time. And you’re just lucky that you had Boris Becker or someone to hit with when you were a kid.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that.” Nico says, laughing. They embrace before Nico leaves, and something about the feel of the younger man in Lewis’ arms again recalls so many memories. They can do this, Lewis decides. They can be friends. He just has to keep himself in check and it’ll be fine.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lewis’ hands find Nico’s waist, pulling him in as they dance, fitting together fluidly. Just like that, Nico is fifteen again. He clings to Lewis breathlessly, a physical embodiment of his youth, an apparition that Nico fears may disappear if he lets go. Lewis looks into his eyes and the burlesque performers on the stage seem to disappear, the music fading from Nico’s consciousness. He’s drunk too much and just like all those years ago Lewis will be the one to take care of him, to see that he gets home okay and stroke his hair while he heaves over the toilet bowl.

Part II. _We said we’d be champions back then, now we both are_

The Monte Carlo Country Club is spectacularly situated on the edge of the principality, just tipping into Roquebrune and nestled in among the cliffs, the burnished orange of the tennis courts a dusty plateau between rocks and ocean. Nico _had_ once practiced there with Boris Becker, many years ago now, back in the days when he was perhaps good enough to have taken the sport to the next level, if his heart didn’t beat so fiercely for racing. He sits in the car park, thrumming his hands on the steering wheel, waiting and mildly irritated at being kept so. It is another few minutes until Lewis’ Mercedes pulls into the car park, stopping beside his own. It seems absurd that they would both drive separately from presumably the same place just a few minutes away, but Nico isn’t at the point of offering to car share. That would imply that they were going to get through the morning without some sort of breakdown in communications and Nico isn’t entirely convinced that’s possible.

They play without agenda, the morning sun beating down on them. All the beginnings of a hot day. There’s something cautious in their interactions at first, off court anyway. They step out of the changing rooms, eyeing each other gingerly as if they don’t quite know how to do this, how to go back to two friends having fun after all they’ve been through together. Nico resists the urge to make a joke about Lewis’ fluorescent orange shorts and Lewis in turn doesn’t comment on the Bjorn Borg-esque headband that Nico is sporting. Years ago making fun of each other was easy and came with the territory of being best friends, knowing each other inside out. Now there are all sorts of unspoken rules and the peace that barely exists between them is fragile, balanced on a knife edge.

Nico serves the ball, a powerful serve that Lewis can’t even get his racquet to. _Beat that_ , his grin seems to say to Lewis. Game on.

It’s more fun than either of them expect, once they get into it. There’s nothing real at stake, and maybe that’s why Nico finds himself relaxing into it, feet skidding across the court as he runs for every shot. When Lewis slips and almost collides with the net trying to get one of Nico’s particularly masterful drop shots back, Nico helps him to his feet, handing him the racquet back and standing patiently while he dusts the clay from his shirt. Despite a couple of contentious moments that see Lewis walking to the other end of the court, inspecting the chalk carefully and with a sceptical look as if to suggest the ball was on the line, even though it was clearly out, it actually ends up being a lot of fun.

They shake hands at the net, Lewis pulling Nico close, sweaty and breathing raggedly. The feel of him is so familiar and yet a world away.

“Well fought,” Nico whispers, stepping back.

“Next time I’ll have you,” Lewis promises with a cheeky grin. Yet there’s something in his eyes, a charge that feels like a current between them.

“I miss competing against you,” Lewis says, once they’ve showered and changed. Lewis’ voice is soft, he means the words.

“It was fun once, wasn’t it,” Nico replies. They walk out slowly past the restaurant, dramatically overlooking the ocean.

“Lunch?” Lewis suggests.

Nico turns to him in surprise. “You’re really up for doing this?” he asks.

Lewis frowns at him.

“The friends thing – being friends again, it’s not just for show, you actually mean it.”  

The mâitre’d points them to a shady table in the corner, pleasantly breezy.

“Yeah, I mean it, I said we could give it a go,” Lewis replies, pulling his shades off and folding them carefully, placing them on the table. “Why did you think I didn’t?”

Nico laughs. “Oh how about because you tried everything you could pre-season to let me know how little it bothered you, me not being there anymore? That I only won because I looked at your data.” He smiles. “I was amused more than anything else. But almost every time we’ve spoken this year you’ve behaved like a dick.”

“I guess I thought I was doing the right thing, and you shouldn’t believe every headline you read,” Lewis chides.  

“I don’t. And I didn’t seek it out either. It was, um, pointed out to me by several people.”

“Call it wishful thinking,” Lewis says. “What was I supposed to say, that I couldn’t stand the thought of you not being in the team?”

“It depends if that’s true,” Nico says. Lewis’ expression is serious now, and Nico’s heart thuds at the prospect of Lewis prompting some kind of deep discussion the like of which they haven’t had since the day they became Mercedes teammates and promised each other it wouldn’t ruin their friendship.

Lewis considers him for a moment. “I was crying over you leaving for weeks,” he whispers seriously, resting his head on his hand dreamily like some modern interpretation of a Romantic poet and looking directly at Nico, who freezes under his gaze. Their eyes lock for a moment and Nico feels a tightness in his chest, a shivery feeling that he can’t place. But then Lewis is laughing, the sound delicious and awful all at once.

“Your face, man. Fuck I should be Instagramming this or something,” he laughs, leaning back in his chair.

“You’re an asshole,” Nico says, but his lips curve into a smile and some part of his brain recalls a time when it was him and Lewis, inseparable against the force of the rest of the world. “Anyway,” he follows, “what the hell do you mean you thought you were doing the right thing? What does that even mean, Lewis?”

“Forget it, it’s just bullshit. Race you to the car park?”

“What are you, twelve?” Nico laughs. But there’s no denying that today has made them both feel as if they’re teenagers again.   

***

 _A fable about following your dream_ \- the blurb on the cover of the book on Vivian’s bedside table says. Nico recognises the title, he vaguely remembers Lewis raving about it once and wondering when the hell he got into philosophical literature. He reaches for it, settling back into the pillows and stretching his legs out with a yawn. Careful to keep Vivian’s page, he leafs through it, reading the odd sentence here and there. She wanders into the room with a glass of water, slipping into bed beside Nico.

 _“Making a decision was only the beginning of things,”_ Nico reads. “ _When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”_

He closes the book, placing it face down on the bed and thinking about the words. Diving into a strong current. It seems like a vaguely fitting description for his life at the moment.

“What do you think about Inka?” Vivian asks, thumbing through a Finnish Baby Names book. Nico shrugs. He doesn't really have that many opinions about Inka.

“Sanna?”

“Hmm, not bad.”

“How about Milla?” Milla is okay, Nico supposes. He tries to imagine it, taking Milla to her first day at school, or to a race one day years from now, her and Alaïa excitedly running through the paddock the way him and Lewis used to do. He used to think of Lewis as the brother he never had, so close that they were family.

He was always so excited to see Lewis, just to go out and eat pizza and stay up talking the whole night. He doesn’t know how they did that, no longer remembers what they even talked about for so long. Just that when Lewis was around he hadn't even wanted to sleep.

“Leena” Vivian suggests, “Ansa…”

“Yeah, it's okay.” They always hated leaving each other at the end of a race weekend, always begged to go for just one more ice cream.

“Katja...Aino...Lewis.”

“What?” Nico says, looking up at the mention of Lewis’ name.

Vivian smiles and touches his arm. “You haven't been listening to anything I've said, have you?”

“Why would we call our daughter Lewis?” Nico replies, confused.

“What did I say before that?”

Nico thinks for a moment. “Milla is nice,” he says sheepishly. “I think I prefer Naila actually, it doesn't have to be a Finnish name, it was just a thought. Sorry Vivi I guess I'm just tired.”

“I'm the one who’s pregnant you know.”

“Yeah I know, I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you?”

“Maybe pay a bit more attention.”

She discards the book and rolls closer to him, her hand resting on the waistband of his underwear. “How tired are you? I’ll suck you off if you go down on me,” she offers casually and fuck he’s definitely not thinking about Lewis anymore.

***

Nico isn’t entirely sure how they’ve fallen into this routine of spending time together whenever Lewis is home from a race. It almost feels as though there’s been a shift between them, something that Nico is aware of but can’t entirely put his finger on. It’s just that Lewis seems to be in Monaco more often than not, since that first day they played tennis together. Where previously Lewis would be off in the Caribbean or America, now he’s around more, texting Nico to invite him to train together. They’ve fallen into the habit of running together in the mornings when Lewis is home. It’s a good few kilometres along the harbour, through the tunnel and up to Fontvieille and back. They run it side by side, both with their earphones in, entirely focussed. It gives Nico a renewed sense of purpose. It’s not as though he no longer has anything to get up for in the morning, far from it, but the urgency that was so much a part of his life for so long isn’t the same anymore. Something as simple as going for a run with Lewis - it feels like it keeps that competitive side of him alive, it makes him feel good. The June sun is high in the sky by the time they reach the Jardin Exotique, stopping to catch their breath for a moment.

“I’ve never been in here you know,” Lewis comments, leaning forward and bracing himself, hands on knees, as he catches his breath. They’re close to the entrance, recently unlocked.

Nico laughs, shaking his head. “I’m deeply offended that you don’t remember,” he says, to Lewis’ puzzlement. “My mum took us both here, the very first time you came to stay with us.”

Lewis frowns, sitting down beside Nico on the bench and wiping the sweat from his eyes. “Really?” he asks.

“Really. It was boring as hell, but then we were twelve and obsessed with racing. Looking at plants didn’t exactly thrill us. Awesome views though. I took Alaïa a couple of months ago,” he smiles, “she spent ages chasing after a butterfly.” Lewis glances fondly at him. “We should go in,” he suggests.

“What, now?”

“Why not. We can run back when we’re done.”

“Too hot by then.”

“We can walk. I’ll pick up my training in the gym this afternoon.”

“You better. I don’t want to be presenting any more trophies to Ferrari anytime soon.”

Lewis takes a sip of his water, eyes widening. “You’re doing more podium interviews?”

“Maybe. They asked me for Hungary. I said I’d think about it.”

“Budapest’s a lot of fun,” Lewis says, before pausing for a moment. “We could have dinner or something, after the race. If you’re free I mean.”

The silence is loaded, punctuated only by the sound of the cicadas and slow, creaking to life of early Sunday morning Monaco. They’re hurtling back into being close friends, it seems to Nico, and while he can’t deny that he’s enjoying it there’s also a deep sense of suspicion. He doesn’t trust easily, never has, and while Lewis had once been one of the closest people to him of all, time has torn them to shreds. Racing has broken that down. “Maybe,” Nico says, lightly, “if I’m free.”

“Just an idea,” Lewis replies. “Are we going in or what, then?”

The gardens are quiet at this time of the morning, the day still fresh and fragrant with flowers, a damp, earthy smell that makes Nico sneeze. Lewis stops and pats him on the back.

“You know if you sneeze eight times in a row it feels almost the same as having an orgasm,” he says.

“So not true,” Nico replies.

“Have you ever sneezed that many times?”

“No, but it’s still bullshit.”

“I’m gonna aim for it,” Lewis says, laughing, shoving his face into a bougainvillea bush with no effect. Nico laughs at him, loud and delicious.

“You really need to get laid if you’re resorting to those tactics.”

“I get plenty,” Lewis replies, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

“Sure you do, what is it half the female population of L.A.?”

“Hey, it’s not like that. Much less than you’d think actually.”

“Yeah,” Nico asks. “Do you have someone in your life then?”

“No one serious. Not since Nicole.”

They wander further along the path, stopping at one of the panoramic viewpoints.

“Do you miss her?” Nico asks.

“Sometimes. I let her down, I think. I wasn’t ready to be who she wanted. I didn’t try hard enough. Fuck, I don’t know.” They stand nestled beside an abundance of cacti, looking out at the splendour of Monaco below, the winding streets and the rocky clifftop fort of the Rocher. The morning breeze is light, drying out the sweat soaked strands of Nico’s hair, tangling it gently. Lewis glances at him, then back out at the view; palms clattering lightly in the wind, boats on the harbour in the distance. So beautiful that it could almost really feel like home if he tries to convince himself of it.

“I never seem to get it right with women,” he says.

Nico worries at his lip. They haven’t strayed into personal territory in a long time. He’s not sure why he brought it up. “You will, I’m sure,” he offers.

“Sometimes I think the right person slipped away years ago,” Lewis muses. He seems to get lost for a moment, distant.

“Jodia?”

“What? Erm, no, not Jodia. Let’s walk, I want to see the cave.”

The observatory cave is really something else, a winding spiral staircase leads down below ground, atmospheric lighting illuminating the rows of stalactites growing down from the roof, their counterparts reaching upwards so that they almost meet in the middle. It's cooler down here, respite from the rapidly increasing heat of the day. They lean against the railings, forearms brushing together, voices echoing when they speak. Nico feels more content than he has in a long time, here with Lewis, as though balance has finally been restored to his life. He almost tells Lewis this, checking himself at the last moment.

***

It’s by chance that Nico ends up in London the same day as Lewis the following week, but by design that they end up going out together that evening. Nico doesn’t really do the clubbing thing anymore, it’s not that easy with a young baby at home and as much as he loves a good party it’s a long while since he’s really properly let his hair down.

Lewis is full of energy though, talking animatedly all through their dinner. Nico rests his chin on his hand, smiling at him across the table.

“Shit am I talking too much, man?”

“No no, it’s good. It’s just…its good isn’t it. That we can do this, I mean. I have to admit to you that I didn’t think we’d ever be able to again.”

“There was always a possibility, Nico. I guess it just got tough.” Lewis places his napkin on the table and takes a sip of wine, gathering his thoughts. “I know that I was responsible as much as you were. I know that. But I think…I can leave it in the past if you can.”

Can he – Nico asks himself. After everything, all the heartache he’s endured, the times when he felt so desperately isolated and broken and Lewis was the one responsible. Can he cast all that aside and put his faith in Lewis again? It’s a tough ask.

“We can give it a try,” Nico offers. “We’re here aren’t we? I’d never have imagined we’d even get to this far at the start of the year.”

“Yeah, yeah I know.” Lewis catches the waiter’s eye, signalling for the bill. “You want to go on somewhere else, hit up a club?”

To Nico’s own surprise, he finds himself agreeing.

Cirque le Soir is, quite frankly, ridiculous, Nico decides as they settle into their table, watching as a semi-naked dancer writhes around on the stage with a live snake around her neck. It’s also too loud to have a conversation so they find themselves sitting closer than usual, thighs pressed together as they lean in to talk to one another.

Lewis is fun. This is something that Nico had thoroughly forgotten in the last few years, what a great time they used to have together. It fills him with nostalgia, that sweet forgotten longing for their youth; European discos with foam machines and nervously trying to be each other’s wingman.

Lewis drags him onto the dancefloor, hips swaying and a belly-full of alcohol making him dizzy and light. Can they be who they used to be again? God, they were always so naïve over each other, so unaware that the competition was bigger than the sum of their parts. The media, the FIA, the unflinching pressure, it was always going to crush them. Lewis’ hands find Nico’s waist, pulling him in as they dance, fitting together fluidly. Just like that, Nico is fifteen again. He clings to Lewis breathlessly, a physical embodiment of his youth, an apparition that Nico fears may disappear if he lets go. Lewis looks into his eyes and the burlesque performers on the stage seem to disappear, the music fading from Nico’s consciousness. He’s drunk too much and just like all those years ago Lewis will be the one to take care of him, to see that he gets home okay and stroke his hair while he heaves over the toilet bowl.

The distress must show on his face because Lewis slips a finger beneath his chin, studying his face carefully. “Are you okay?” he yells.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” Nico’s traitorous teenage self blurts out.

***

The morning light is soft, skimming over their bodies in narrow beams that peek out from the gaps at the edges of the curtains, covers kicked to the end of the bed in desperation to find a blessed cool spot somewhere on the mattress to soothe alcohol-heated skin. Lewis isn’t sure for a moment where he is, consequence of a life lived in transit. He opens his eyes, shifting so that his morning erection is pressed against the bed rather than Nico’s arse, groaning softly at the pressure. He doesn’t remember getting back to the apartment, or why he brought Nico with him rather than seeing him off in a cab back to his hotel, doesn’t remember either how the two of them went from fully clothed to being curled up together in only their underwear.

It feels nice though, being so close to him after so long, _the curse of teammates_ limiting their physical interaction to brief uncomfortable podium hugs for years. In another lifetime they had slept like this frequently, too old perhaps even back then for such casual intimacy; the intimacy of children trying to hang on to childhood affections while adjusting awkwardly into more adult bodies, more grown-up emotions.

Lewis takes a breath of Nico’s hair, soft against his nose, he splays his fingers out over Nico’s chest, manly now as it wasn’t then and softly traces a path down his stomach, coming to rest on the jut of his hipbone. All the curves and lines of his body, the rise and fall of his chest, take shape like a memory long mislaid, lying dormant in black and white and now, now forced into the light in all its gleaming technicolour glory. Lewis lets his hand fall away, rolling over onto his back and looking up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath. His limbs are tired and achy from a restless, dehydrated sleep and all he wants is to wrap Nico in his arms and close his eyes again as if all they have to do that day is sleep and talk and try to beat each other in their karts. He’s too hungover for thoughts of their youth to do anything other than raise a lump in his throat. That’s not who they are anymore, even with the tentative renewal of their friendship.

Beside him Nico groans and stretches out and Lewis jolts upright, reaching for the duvet and dragging it over them both to the waist.

“Shit, how much did we drink?” Nico asks thickly, resting his arm across his forehead.

“Way too much. I forgot how hard you can party.”

There’s an unconscious shift, both of them edging marginally towards their respective sides of the bed. “Yeah well, I don’t get the chance so much now. Mind if I use your shower?”

Lewis watches from the bed as he retrieves his clothes from the chair, stares at the closed door as he hears the thunderous spray of the shower start up. It feels so familiar and alien all at once, and fuck how long has it been since his sheets have smelled of another man’s aftershave, another man’s skin. He presses the pillow to his face for a moment before throwing it across the room.

 _He fucked up your qualifying in Monaco, he drove into you at Spa, in Spain. He used every bit of knowledge he had to get inside your head and break you_ , Lewis reminds himself. What would he have done if he’d known _everything_?

If Nico feels at all awkward about having shared a bed with Lewis he doesn’t show it, busying himself in the kitchen putting some coffee on while Lewis takes his turn in the shower. There are two en-suites, Nico could quite easily have slept in the spare room, showered in the other bathroom instead of the one where all Lewis’ toiletries are, using his shower gel so that their bodies both take on the same scent.

“To friends,” Nico says, raising his coffee cup and touching it against Lewis’. His hair is still wet, dark blond tendrils clinging to his neck where it’s slightly longer at the back. Lewis smiles at him but he hesitates a moment long enough to see uncertainty in Nico’s eyes. Nervousness. The trust isn’t quite there for either of them, not yet, not fully.

“Friends,” Lewis returns. What are they going to be, this new incarnation of himself and Nico? He doesn’t have a fucking clue how they can make friends work, as if they were just two ordinary people.

“So many things have changed haven’t they. I still remember the very first time we got drunk and trashed our room, you remember, the hotel in Oschersleben? I thought we'd always be that close. We had everything ahead of us and it never even occurred to me that we’d fall apart the way we did.”

“We let it happen, both of us. Fuck, that night though. Why the hell did you insist on throwing the mattress out the window, man? Imagine if the hotel had called your dad instead of Dino, the bollocking we’d have got.”

“I was being a rock star. Sex, drugs and karting, throwing stuff into the swimming pool. It’s what legends, do, right?” Nico’s face crinkles into laughter.

“Karting, yeah. The only time I ever saw you smoke any weed you definitely couldn’t handle it. And when was the sex? I must’ve missed the sex.”

Nico flips him the middle finger. “I had plenty of sex.”

“Yeah right.” Lewis teases, but his smile is soft with remembrance. “You were so shy when we first met. I don’t know what I expected, but you definitely weren’t what I thought.”

“What did you think?”

“That you’d be some arrogant rich kid I guess, that you were only there because of your dad. But you were…good. Great. And nice. Not everyone in that world was so nice to me, you know.”

“I liked you,” Nico says softly, holding Lewis’ gaze, wondering how they’re here sitting opposite each other at the breakfast table after all that’s happened.

Lewis doesn’t look away. He thinks back to the club and the feel of Nico loose in his arms, limbs heavy with drink, face flushed and shirt half unbuttoned. “I liked you too.”

Nico’s phone vibrates loudly on the table, pulling his attention away from Lewis.

“Wow, so um…Vivian wants to know if you feel like coming out to Ibiza for a few days next week?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book referenced is The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, which tbh I haven't read but Lewis has mentioned in interviews a few times that it's his favourite novel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico wasn’t expecting this when they started hanging out again, the openness, the honesty. He didn’t think it would escalate to this so quickly. He wants Lewis back properly, he realises; wants him in his life the way that he used to be. Everything has changed though, everything.

“He’s really good with her,” Vivian nods her head over towards the pool where Lewis is playing with Alaïa, swinging her up in the air and then dunking her feet into the water as she giggles away happily.

Nico glances over at them. There’s something almost surreal about it, him and Lewis and Vivian together again the way they used to be years ago. It was entirely Vivian’s idea that Lewis join them in Ibiza for a few days and honestly, Nico hadn’t expected Lewis to be so keen on the idea. But watching him in the sunshine cradling Alaïa in his arms it’s hard to remember that Lewis usually spends his time between races hanging out in Beverly Hills with supermodels or engaging in some high-octane sports. He seems as much the family man as Nico is right now and it makes Nico wonder why he gave up Nicole when the two of them could’ve had this exact same thing.

“His sisters have kids, so I guess he’s good at being the fun uncle,” Nico replies.

“You think he’ll ever settle down?”

“Maybe. We don’t really talk about that kind of thing.”

“Have you asked him?”

“We’re really not that close, and guys don’t generally ask each other that sort of stuff.”

Vivian rolls her eyes. “It’s the 21st century, you don’t have to be so macho you know.” She leans in and kisses him.

“ _ You _ could ask him, he’d open up to you. He mentioned her a while back but it was all a bit vague. He’ll probably marry a twenty year old when he’s fifty and have six children or something. Really would it surprise you that much?” Nico adds at Vivian’s look of incredulity.

“She looks so much like you, man, I can’t believe it,” Lewis says when he walks over, Alaïa clinging to him. “You’ve got your daddy’s eyes, don’t you princess,” he coos.

Vivian reaches for her phone as Lewis is passing Alaïa over to Nico. “What are you…?” Nico begins, Vivi waving him into silence.

“I told Susie I’d get a picture of you two together. She mentioned to Toto that you were friends again and he didn’t believe her. So smile.”

She shows them the picture, the two of them with their arms around each other and Alaïa between them. Nico leans in closer to him, looking at the picture on the screen, and he gets that butterflies in the stomach feeling. They’re so close to being the friends that they once were and fuck he wants it. Wants all the fun they once had as kids to translate into adulthood. He wants Lewis to be part of his life like this for good, so much so that he can look at him now and not see the Lewis of the past three years. Nico isn’t naïve enough to ever forget, but time heals. They bring out the worst in each other but also the best.

-

The next morning they take Nico’s yacht over to Formentera, the ocean parting as the bow cuts a steady path through it. Everywhere is blue as far as the eye can see, the sky melting into the water far off on the horizon and not a single cloud above them. The shoreline recedes into the distance, beachgoers shrinking the further out to sea they get. Lewis stands up front beside Nico at the helm while Vivian plays with Alaïa beneath the shade of the canopy. The air is fresh, salt carried on the breeze and the morning sun pleasantly warming on their bare skin, the two of them just in shorts having thrown their t-shirts aside. The atmosphere is as relaxed between the three of them as it’s been in a long time, loose and lazy as the flowing kaftan that Vivian is wearing. Her bump is huge now at six months gone; Lewis glances back at her as she scrapes her hair up into a ponytail, Alaïa adorably lying across her lap talking away to her unborn sister.

“You should put some suncream on,” Vivian waves the bottle at them and a few moments later her hands are gliding over Lewis’ back, rubbing the cool spray over his inked skin before repeating the action on Nico. The sensation of her hands makes Lewis shudder, the touch is light and motherly but also strangely intimate at the same time. He watches her fingers work over Nico’s lightly tanned skin and is transported back to his apartment in London, waking up with Nico’s flesh warm beneath his palms.

Fuck, he really needs to get laid.

It’s early afternoon when they moor up in the harbour, stopping for lunch at a restaurant perched just back from the nearby beach, blue tablecloths and umbrellas blowing slightly in the noon breeze. It isn't quite the height of high season yet and there's a sleepy calm to the seaside town that feels in a way like it suits Nico more than Lewis.

The wine is definitely going to Lewis’ head fast. Or it could be the heat, perhaps a combination of the two. He stretches out in the chair, smiling at the waiter as he clears the plates from their starters away. His eyes linger on the guy’s arse as he walks away, shamelessly and in a way he wouldn't normally allow himself to do. Vivian, rather than Nico, notices, raising her eyebrows at him with some knowledge that Lewis wasn't aware of giving away. He blushes just a little, turning his attention to Alaïa and bouncing her on his knee gently as Nico looks on with something that might just be fondness. It’s easy for Lewis to forget for a moment that this isn’t really his life, this is Nico’s life and while he’s somehow allowed himself to become ensconced in it, it isn’t really where he belongs. It almost feels like a privilege to be among them like this but at the same time something about it unsettles him a little.

“Time to go back to Papa now,” Lewis lifts her over the table as their mains arrive.

“Your calamari.” Lewis looks the waiter over again as he places the plate before him: tall and lithe with a complexion darkened by a lifetime of Mediterranean summers, brown eyes captivating as Lewis looks into them. He feels the heat crackle between them, more potent than that of the sun. God, how long has it been since he last had sex with a guy? He can’t even think now, maybe it was at the afterparty in Mexico a couple of years ago, but he was so far into a bottle of tequila that he barely remembers. That was certainly more recent than the time in New York when he picked someone out from an agency and then awkwardly sat on the end of the bed talking to the guy all night feeling so weird about the whole thing that he’d been embarrassingly unable to go through with it.

If Lewis is honest with himself he probably prefers men, really. Or maybe it’s just because the opportunities are so limited that it seems almost like something more special when it does happen, sets a flame burning with an intensity that he never really feels with a woman. The waiter looks a bit like Sainz actually, same dark hair and skin tone but with a heavier dusting of stubble on his jaw. His eyes linger on Lewis for longer than necessary and fuck, is this something he can really do here, now – because he gets the distinct impression that he quite easily could. Before the waiter turns to walk back inside he touches Lewis’ shoulder, just briefly but it’s enough for the recognition to sink in.

Lewis doesn’t do this, he never does this, not like this. Yet it’s been so long and the renewal of his friendship with Nico has brought with it a longing that Lewis has tried to bury for years.

“Back in a sec,” he says when their plates are empty, excusing himself and heading towards the doors, his heart beating as fast as it does in those few intense seconds before the lights go out.

***

Nico knows he’s had enough to drink, alcohol thudding through his veins and clouding his thoughts. It’s late in the evening, their second night in Ibiza and Vivian has left them sitting out on the patio together, just him and Lewis. The string of lanterns along the wall provide the only light, a soft glow that falls on Lewis’ face, making him look almost dreamlike. Nico shakes the backgammon dice back and forth in his hand, his enthusiasm for the game forgotten. He’s thoroughly beaten Lewis so far, but they’ve sunk a bottle and a half of wine and a few vodka and cokes by this point and tactics are becoming harder to focus on. He places the dice back in their container and holds his hands up to signify no more. Lewis smiles at him, baring the gap in his teeth, and Nico feels himself slipping into memories. That’s how it seems to be more and more lately with Lewis.

He knows it’s mainly because he’s drunk but in this moment it feels as though everything is exactly the same as it was years ago, just the two of them hanging out playing games. Lewis is looking at him affectionately and Nico can’t help but bring it up. “They were great years weren’t they, the early days? When we were in karts,” Nico says. “I didn’t think about it for so long, but it was fun wasn’t it, before everything else.”

Lewis places his glass on the table slightly clumsily. “It was the best time,” he agrees. “Just the two of us, before everything. I used to look forward to seeing you so much then, you have no idea, man.”

Nico studies him carefully. The light is soft on his face, making him look younger. He’s foregone the piercings for today, wearing just a simple black t-shirt and ripped jeans, looking more like the Lewis of years gone. It almost feels like they’re just boys again like this, just hanging out in Ibiza as they once had in their teens. Yet everything is different, they’re not who they used to be and it fills Nico with an almost unbearable nostalgia, having Lewis close again. His eyes feel heavy, he’s sleepy with drink and the Spanish heat. Being wary around Lewis has become second nature in recent years but now Nico can feel his guard slipping. “Tell me,” he says, and he wants the indulgence of being important to Lewis. The music drifting from Nico’s iPhone is melodic, folksy and mellow. It seems to fit the mood of the evening. He takes a sip of his drink, the sweet tang of the rum warming his throat, the ice all but melted. Lewis leans closer to him, looking slightly unsteady. His voice is slurred only a little when he speaks, the syllables elongated with alcohol and fondness. “I used to be so excited about seeing you, every time,” he admits. “At first it was who you were, your dad and everything. Then it was just because you were my friend. No one at home got it the way you did, what it meant to race, to win. The way it felt. And all the other shit, people saying I didn’t belong in that world...you fought my battles even when I was too proud and stubborn to want you to. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Nico wasn’t expecting this when they started hanging out again, the openness, the honesty. He didn’t think it would escalate to this so quickly. He wants Lewis back properly, he realises; wants him in his life the way that he used to be. Everything has changed though, everything. He bites his lip, looking away, out at the swimming pool and beyond to the sand dunes and the dark expanse of the ocean. He’s afraid, he realises. Afraid of exposing all of his fears and dreams to Lewis in case this is just a game. “It’s not a game,” Lewis whispers, and Nico realises that he’s basically just mumbling shit aloud. It’s late, it’s time to turn in and call it a night. “I’m worried that the year will end and someone else will be Champion, you’ll be Champion...that it’ll make me want it again, when I can’t undo what I’ve done.”

Lewis touches his arm, drawing goosebumps on his skin. “You did it just like you always said you would. I believe in you.” His hand moves up to Nico’s face then, caressing his jaw gently. The track fades out, leaving nothing but the incessant hum of the cicadas in its wake. Nico feels dizzy, exhausted. He forgets what he was going to say, unable to focus on anything other than the way Lewis is staring at him with such unbridled affection in his eyes. It’s a long time since anyone other than Vivian has looked at him that way and he feels his dick twitch involuntarily in his pants. 

Lewis is watching him, smiling at their closeness. “You look good you know, since retirement. Relaxed. It suits you.”

Nico laughs, rolls his eyes.

“Hey, I mean it. You look amazing,” Lewis says, tongue darting out to swipe across his bottom lip. He’s looking at Nico intently, in a way that makes him shiver.

“Enough,” Nico says, “or I’ll think you’re flirting with me.”

“What if I am,” Lewis chances, with a cheeky smile. It’s the wine, Nico thinks. It’s just the wine. Alcohol and flattery and nostalgia. 

Touching Lewis’ arm, he pulls the older man’s hand away from his face, scraping the chair against the tiles as he stands up unsteadily. “I need to get some sleep,” he says, looking down at Lewis.

“Yeah, yeah sure. It’s late. Nico?”

“Yeah.”

“Um, nothing, it doesn’t matter.”

Nico takes a step towards the door and then stops suddenly, his heart pounding as he turns back and unthinkably leans down to brush his lips against Lewis’, laying his claim. It is a fraction of a second, the two hundredths that Nico hardly ever seemed to be able to find over him. Their lips move together chastely for a moment and then Nico pulls back, walking quickly into the house without saying a word. The softness of Lewis’ lips is all that Nico can think of as he slips beneath the sheets next to Vivian. The horror and confusion only sets in later, when he wakes in the middle of the night, parched and disgusted with himself.

***

They don't discuss it, which Nico decides is definitely for the best because honestly, what the fuck was he thinking. And it...it wasn't like it was even anything at all, other than drunken nostalgia, affection for the friendship they had as kids. In any event he doesn't give Lewis a chance to discuss it, ensuring that wherever they go for the rest of Lewis’ stay there, Vivian is always at their side. It isn't till they're back in Monaco that it inevitably comes up, Lewis forcing the issue after they've been cycling one morning.

“About what?” Nico asks, taking off his helmet and placing it on the work surface in Lewis’ kitchen in response to his insistence that they need to talk. Their bike ride had been fine, normal, yet punctuated by the tension that Nico had hoped they could leave behind in Ibiza.

“You know what, Nico.”

Nico holds his breath. “That was tough-going up the mountains back there in the heat,” he replies, turning away.

“I thought we were past this,” Lewis says, annoyance in his voice. “I thought we could talk like we used to - about things that are important.”

“What's important? Shit, I said I'd take Alaïa swimming while Vivi has lunch with her mum. Can we talk later?”

“Nico,” Lewis says in that same tone, part sad part exasperated. He places his hand on Nico’s arm, anchoring him. “What happened in Ibiza that second night, it wasn't just you, I wanted…”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Nico frowns. “That was some amount of wine we managed to get through, my head was killing me the next morning. I think I won at backgammon again though right.”

“Come on man, you're a bad liar at the best of times. I know you remember.”

Nico shakes his arm free, grabbing the helmet and turning it over in his hands. “I don't know what you mean,” he says firmly.

“For fuck’s sake Nico. I don’t understand you sometimes,” Lewis snaps.

“What?”

“You can’t just kiss me and then act like nothing happened. I didn’t imagine it, Nico.”

Nico tries to resist the urge to just walk out of there. It’s too much, it’s too confusing. It’s also all he’s thought about since it happened. It’s a longing for the closeness they had as kids, nothing more. He just isn’t sure how to say that to Lewis. And why should he have to? There’s a perfectly rational explanation for it, but when he goes to say it, it sounds pathetic in his own head, like he’s trying to convince Lewis of something he doesn’t even really believe himself.

“It was nothing,” he says instead. “Can we please just forget about it?” Things are going well and there’s really no need to do this, Nico thinks, there’s no reason to fuck up the revival of their friendship with something as ridiculous as whatever what happened in Ibiza was.

Lewis’ face falls, he turns away, looking out at the ocean.

“Lewis…” Nico prompts after what feels like a silence that will never end falls over them. It’s not a comfortable silence, not like they’ve fallen back into the habit of lately.

“I didn’t even think it was a possibility,” Lewis says, his back to Nico.

“What was a possibility?”

Lewis turns suddenly, gripping Nico’s shoulders, breathing heavily as if he’s struggling to control himself. Nico flinches, half expecting a fist to his jaw, but Lewis just looks into his eyes imploringly. Their mouths are so close and Nico is transported back to that night just by the proximity of him. It throws him off balance because he knows then, knows what Lewis means even as his brain scrambles to try and make some logic from this. He doesn’t want to kiss Lewis and Lewis doesn’t want to kiss him. That isn’t what Lewis is referring to. Except it is and Nico wishes Lewis would just hit him instead, half considers punching the Brit in the face just to change the direction this is going in.

“God, I really thought you’d stopped this,” Nico says, taking a step back, Lewis’ hands falling away from where they were resting on his shoulders. Nico can barely look at him.

“Stopped what, what are you talking about?”

“All the mind games, all the bullshit. Did you get bored without it, is that what this is? You’re having trouble fucking with your new teammate, it’s not as much fun for you?” he half yells.

“What are you talking about,” Lewis says, dazed.

“This was a mistake, I can see that now. Us being friends again. It was never going to work out, we’re not fifteen anymore. We…we’re—”

“Nico stop it, why are you doing this?”

Nico laughs pityingly, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You know what, I’m not. Stay away from me, Lewis.”

Lewis runs a hand through his hair, walking over to the door without making eye contact with Nico, opening it and looking past the blond, out into the distance, waiting for him to leave.

“Nico,” Lewis says suddenly, gripping Nico’s arm just as the younger man is about to walk past him, “You’re the one who kissed me, don’t forget that.”   


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Talk, then, if you've suddenly decided you want to,” Lewis says, closing the door of his room in the motorhome behind him and flicking the lock shut. He sits down on the couch, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, looking everywhere but at Nico, who hovers by the door as if about to change his mind and make a swift exit.

Nico isn't having some sort of crisis over his sexuality, he’s really not. He’s thirty-two years old for fuck’s sake, if he was attracted to men he would’ve noticed by now. It’s just, it’s…god he doesn’t know what it is. He finds himself staring, eyes lingering on every man he sees, studying hard masculine features and the arse of every guy who walks past in skinny jeans. There’s nothing. He isn’t attracted to these people; he isn’t attracted to any of his friends either. Every time Georg hugs him, which is fairly often as they’re quite tactile with each other, he tries to will himself into feeling something, some stirring feeling of attraction and arousal. Because in some way that would be easier, if it was like that. But there’s nothing. He can appreciate when someone is attractive of course, but it still remains that he doesn’t fancy men. Yet somehow Lewis is there, on his mind from the moment he wakes until he falls asleep with some old teenage memory replaying in his head.

As much as Nico tries to tell himself they’re friends and he just likes, or liked, having Lewis as a friend again, it’s not about friendship. How can it be about friendship when all he can think of is how it would feel to kiss him properly, what sounds he’d make if Nico were to lick over the tattooed lines of the eagle on his neck, how Lewis’ skin would feel beneath his fingertips. It’s infatuation, an overwhelming teenage-style feeling of want that Nico has absolutely no idea what to do with as a happily married adult. He does the only thing he can, which is to put as much distance between himself and Lewis as possible, ignoring his calls and texts - even the one that simply says _I promise never to mention it again. Just wanna be your friend again -_ even as he knows it’s cruel to do so. He tries instead to concentrate on what the hell he’s doing with his life, back and forth to London for meetings and busying himself in the office going over the details of the Silicon Valley trip.

It’s easier to ignore the things he doesn’t want to think about when he’s filling his time with all the fun things that he’s never been able to do before. He steps up onto the stage in Trafalgar Square at the F1 Live event, all smiles and enthusiasm for the crowd. Lewis’ absence weighs heavy on his mind though, and the glorious London sunshine doesn’t cut through the chill he feels inside. Lewis stayed away because of him, he knows, because there’s only so far he can push before Lewis will just give up and leave him alone forever. Which is...not what he wants. It’s really not. Nico doesn’t know what he wants, which just makes it that bit harder.

He tips Lewis for the win at Silverstone, speaking of him favourably in a bid to limit some of the damage. When he takes his place in the Royal Box at Wimbledon a couple of days later he lets himself indulge in an idle daydream - what if he’d picked tennis as his sport instead. But then, his path and Lewis’ never would’ve crossed. It doesn’t occur to Nico that maybe that would have been better for both of them.

***

“We need to talk,” Nico says at Silverstone. It’s an hour before the race and Lewis doesn’t look at all impressed. This is a shit time to have a talk, Nico knows, but there is no other time really, so…

They make their way out of the garage, Toto looking slightly alarmed at the sight of his former driver and the pole sitter wandering off together _now._

“Talk, then, if you've suddenly decided you want to,” Lewis says, closing the door of his room in the motorhome behind him and flicking the lock shut. He sits down on the couch, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, looking everywhere but at Nico, who hovers by the door as if about to change his mind and make a swift exit.

“I miss you,” he says softly.

Lewis laughs. “Sure, that's why you've been ignoring me. That's why you told me to stay out of your life.”

“Lewis wait,” Nico says as Lewis heads for the door, trying to push past him.

But now that it comes to it, Nico doesn’t know what he wants to say, tension stretching out unbearably between them. The energy and excitement of the Silverstone crowd is palpable, wild outside the motorhome. Nico wonders if it would make it better if Lewis could race him, beat him out here on hallowed home turf the way he has so many times before. Would that be enough to make it all okay, if they were to stand on the podium again side by side, Nico always on the second step? He wonders if any of it is worth it. They had their friendship and lost it more times than he can count now. Why does it matter so much, now they’re adults? Why can’t he just let it go for good? He thought he had at the start of the year, but now they’re here.

“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did,” Nico says finally, pacing a bit before going to sit down, Lewis following. “It was nothing and I overreacted.” He doesn’t notice the way that Lewis tenses up beside him. Nico can’t have the discussion he knows Lewis wants to have, not now, not just before the race - a race that whether he’ll admit it or not, he wants Lewis to win. They can get vicious, get impossibly low with words and insecurities that should remain buried but are so useful when it comes to stabbing each other in the back, but Nico can’t do that to Lewis before a race that he knows means the world to him. Trying to reach some sort of truce seems better - better than nothing at least.

“I shouldn’t have ignored your calls,” Nico adds to Lewis’ continued silence.

“No. I thought you made your mind up about us. I thought that was why - that we were done,” Lewis finally says.

“You’re my best friend,” Nico replies, even though it’s not true and hasn’t been for a very long time. He can’t quantify what they are now, just that whatever it is it’s essential to his existence and trying to cope without Lewis in his life over the last few weeks has almost driven him crazy.

Lewis laughs scornfully and fuck, Nico is too tired to fight over this. “I made a stupid mistake,” he says. “In Ibiza. And when we talked after that. Lewis, I'm sorry.”

Lewis looks up in surprise then, meeting Nico's eyes. They never actually say sorry, ever. Even after Spa in 2014 Nico had used about five different phrases in the debrief to talk around it without ever using the damn word. Lewis reaches for him, touching his arm as his eyes search Nico's, looking for something else, for more. _I didn't think it was a possibility_ Nico remembers. He wants Lewis to tell him, to explain what he meant. He wants Lewis to make the move so he doesn't have to, so he can blame him.

For one horrible, wonderful moment Nico thinks Lewis is going to kiss him, but then the Brit moves to stand, glancing up at the clock on the wall.

“I need to get to the grid,” he says. “You'll be around after the race so we can talk some more?”

Fuck. “No, I'm erm, I'm heading to L.A. straight after the race.” Nico holds his breath for a moment. “Are we okay, Lewis?”

“Yeah,” Lewis replies, but he sounds dejected. “Yeah I guess so. I'll be in New York tomorrow so maybe I'll call you.”

***

It feels like a relief when Nico finally steps onto the plane to California, as if he can neatly leave all of his confusion behind in Europe and land halfway across the world with his insecurities wiped out. It’s a false sense of distance of course. All he’s really doing is leaving behind Vivian and Alaïa for a week, the people who keep him happy and grounded. It isn’t really distancing himself from Lewis at all, given how he barely even graces the Riviera with his presence anymore.

“I was thinking about what you said at Silverstone,” Lewis says, when Nico answers his phone call. The rented house in Palo Alto is silent, Georg and Francesco long since departed for their respective rooms and the hope of sleep. Nico’s jetlag is reminiscent of other long haul flights – Melbourne, Singapore, Tokyo. It’s familiar in a way that he likes, even as the sleeplessness makes his limbs ache, his mind unable to shut down. He walks barefoot through the living room, sliding open one of the glass doors and stepping out onto the deck.  It's not that cold even though it’s 3am. Later than that in New York he realises, sitting down on the edge of one of the sunloungers next to the pool, almost properly morning there. He wonders if Lewis is jetlagged too, if he’s been lying awake thinking about him, about them.

“Which part of what I said?”

“About forgetting it, about being friends again. Nico, I don’t think I can.” Nico’s heart sinks. He thought they’d fixed it and fuck, not now, not when he’s so far away from everything he’s ever known and loved, both literally and figuratively. “You don’t think you can be friends?” Nico asks.

“I can’t pretend there’s nothing more there,” Lewis replies. “Not without even talking about it. Please can you just be honest with me.”

“Why does it matter so much to you, Lewis?”

Lewis sighs heavily. “I just want to know what's going on with you, what you're thinking.”

Nico is silent for so long, the words on the tip of his tongue. He knows if he speaks them he can't take them back again, that it will change things. He'd wanted to change his life, that was the intention in retiring, but for it to be like this, everything so strange and new and making such little sense - being friends with Lewis again was something to cling to, a part of his old life rediscovered. Now he feels like he's breaking it down.

“I kissed you because I wanted to, because I wanted you, in that moment,” Nico says resignedly. “I was drunk and we were talking about the past and I just...I don't know. Why does it matter?”

“It matters because it's all I can think about. I can't go back to us being strangers. I don't think you quite get it, Nico. I… fuck I don't want to have this conversation on the phone. How long are you in L.A. for?”

“I fly home on Friday night,” Nico replies.

“Shit, I'm here till then.”

“Ships in the night hey,” Nico says, standing and walking over to the water's edge.

“Come to Budapest?”

“Yeah I'll try. I don't know.”

“Fuck's sake, Nico! I need to see you.”

“We'll talk, I promise. Soon, just not like this. Lewis?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I do miss you, I meant it when I said that.”

“I miss you too,” Lewis says softly, anger dissolving.

Nico stares at his reflection for a long while after hanging up, moonlight glossy on the rippling surface, going over the conversation in his head. He strips naked then, placing his clothes at the side and jumping in to the deep end. The water is deliciously cool, rushing up over him as he swims beneath it, holding his breath as long as he can. When he resurfaces he lets himself be lulled along, floating on his back and looking up at the stars, bright in the darkness of the California sky. His chest hurts with an anxiety that’s at once familiar and also entirely new. It's something akin to losing, that ache that claws deep in you. Except he hasn't lost, he's won the greatest prize of them all.

The victory seems so far behind now that it's almost as if it happened to someone else.

A few hours later Nico watches the sunrise, high in the hills and mist lifting over the Golden Gate Bridge. It's breathtaking and he feels his insignificance so keenly for a moment, how small he is in the scheme of things. He snaps a selfie, pausing for a second in indecision. _Wish you were here,_ the caption says. He sends it to both Vivian and to Lewis.

***

“You and Nina,” Nico begins on the flight back to Europe, settling back into the airplane seat and reclining it a little, turning towards Georg. “You've been together a long time now.”

It doesn't really sound like a question and Georg is puzzled, wondering where this is going. He glances around at their fellow passengers, most of whom are sleeping, Francesco slack jawed and snoring softly across the aisle. The cabin lighting is low, the engines a soothing hum. Nico swirls his gin and tonic round in the plastic cup, ice clinking pleasingly. He glances at Georg out the corner of his eye before continuing. “Have you ever been attracted to anyone else? Since, I mean.”

Georg thinks for a moment. “In our business, the travel, all the people you meet…yes there are women I've been attracted to. I've never acted on anything though. Too much to lose. Why? Is there someone?”

Nico looks out of the window, blackness of the Atlantic far below, the only lights in the sky are from other aircraft; beacons in the darkness ferrying people to and from the things they love. He wonders if Lewis is on one of them, making his way to Los Angeles just as Nico is leaving it behind.  

“Possibly,” he says vaguely. And then in a rush of words, spilling low from his mouth in German, “I think it might be Lewis.” He can't take it back once he's said it. Part of him wants to, but also the truth is freeing and he trusts Georg completely. “I kissed him,” Nico adds. “Not, not properly but I think I wanted to. I think _he_ wanted me to.”

Georg doesn't say anything for a few seconds, Nico sipping at his drink and wondering if he's making anything better or worse in bringing this up.

“Your lives were so connected for so long,” Georg answers eventually. “Now you have a new life that you're unsure of. Things don't make sense the way they used to. All that structure, the regimented nature of it, that's gone. People cling to what they know. There's a kid I was friends with at school, Max. He enlisted in the army when we were nineteen, served ten years. When he left he didn't know how to live a normal life, couldn't settle into it. He started gambling, staying up all night at the casino. Had an affair with a girl who dealt on the blackjack table. Six months in and he was begging his wife to take him back.”

“I’m not going to start gambling,” Nico dismisses.

“No, of course not. What I mean is it’ll take some time but you’ll figure out your path eventually. Lewis is part of your old life, that’s probably why you’re drawn to him again. You need to look forward. Why don’t you start with these?” Georg pulls one of the Stanford short course prospectuses from the seat pocket and flicks through it. “Electric Automobiles and Aircraft sounds interesting,” he says, passing it to Nico.

“Yeah, it does,” Nico replies, reading over the description without taking in any of the words.  He finishes his drink and leans his head against the window, closing his eyes, Georg watching him with concern. When Nico’s breathing evens out in sleep Georg slips the prospectus into his bag, pulling the blanket up to cover Nico and trying to ignore the worry that he feels.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's supposed to be taking ownership of his life, not handing it back to Lewis on a plate.

Nico throws himself into family life for a week and then it’s off to Berlin for the Deutsche Bahn filming. It’s not as if he’s bored per-se, just restless for living, for new experiences and ways to replicate the things he’s given up. There’s a whole world out there that he hasn’t explored yet and before he leaves for Germany he makes vague plans to take the whole family to South Africa on safari once the baby is old enough.

There’s the occasional text from Lewis, belying the tension that had threaded through their last phone call. Lewis sends him links to funny YouTube videos and Nico responds with his own light banter, safe and friendly and entirely in ignorance of all the real things they need to talk about. He’s in his hotel room in Berlin reading the latest issue of Wired before dinner when Lewis FaceTimes him. He sets the magazine down on the bed and tries to ignore the electric surge in his chest at the familiar name on the screen. He smooths a hand through his hair before answering, hoping he looks vaguely respectable and at the same time marvelling over how he suddenly feels like a teenager again when it comes to anything to do with Lewis now.

“You’re gonna come to Budapest?” Lewis asks when they’ve danced around each other with small talk for as long as they can sustain. Lewis is bare chested, sitting out beside a swimming pool in Los Angeles, and Nico wonders how it is that they always seem to be running away from each other. He looks good, Lewis, even through the small screen. Nico wonders if his semi-naked state is deliberate. He wonders how the taut muscles of Lewis’ stomach would feel to touch...whether he likes having his neck kissed. Which, of course he does because who doesn’t. God, he really should stop thinking about this.

“Yeah I’m coming to Budapest,” Nico finds himself agreeing, even though in the interval since they last spoke he’d very firmly decided not to go.

Lewis looks ecstatic at the prospect though, smiling through the screen. Nico tries to mirror him but this is so dangerous, the thought of being alone with him now when all Nico can think is _want, want, want._ He isn’t entirely sure what it is he wants either, which makes it even worse. The times he’s jerked off alone in his hotel room in the middle of the night thinking of Lewis are not welcome memories in the light of day. But they happened nonetheless.

“There’s this great restaurant,” Lewis is saying, “just by the river. They do the most amazing pizza, you’d love it. Obviously I’m not technically allowed to have any but just don’t tell my trainer. I’ll make us a reservation. And we can, um, talk and stuff.”

 _Talk and stuff_ sounds kind of ominous and also oblique. “Yeah I guess we can talk,” Nico agrees.

“I think we need to.” Well yes, obviously. They can talk and clear this up and go back to being friends who hang out and train together and definitely don’t want to kiss each other. That’s what Nico knows is the right thing. He can’t help but feel that Lewis has other ideas though, as he describes the restaurant and this great bar he knows nearby. It sounds so much like a date. Nico’s heart leaps at the prospect of it, at the awareness that on some level he wants it to be a date. This isn’t something that can happen, he knows. But Lewis’ enthusiasm is infectious and ironically, given all they’ve been through, the thought of hurting him and seeing the light go out of his eyes the way it had when they’d argued – argued and _not_ almost kissed for real – in Monaco, is heartbreaking.

They talk for almost half an hour, just like the old days, and at the end of it Nico doesn’t even care that he’s late for dinner with Georg, there’s a spring in his step as he walks down into the hotel lobby. It’s almost light enough to dispel the dead weight he feels in his chest.

***

The positivity doesn’t last. Halfway through dinner on their last night in Berlin and after probably several glasses of wine more than he should’ve had, the thought of just going for it enters Nico’s mind. Just doing it, just to see. Just once. Georg is saying something about e-karting and opportunities but all Nico can think is what it would be like, going further with Lewis. What would they do? Would Lewis suck him off, he wonders, the three time World Champion down on his knees, looking up at him with those big brown eyes. What would they do and how would they do it? He’s convinced Lewis wants to now after all he’s said, desire hinted at in their awkward exchanges. Has Lewis spent nights lying awake, hand around his dick and his eyes squeezed shut trying to picture Nico? Does he think about when they were teenagers, spooned against each other like kids even though really they were too old to sleep like that? Had Lewis ever got hard on those nights, slipping off to the bathroom while he slept on unawares?

The sommelier produces a free bottle of Riesling for them - _compliments of the house, huge fans etc -_ and Nico hadn't even realised that Riesling was still a thing that people actively drink in the 21st century, but it's on the house so refusing it seems rude and wouldn't reflect well on him. And it's not like he's got a race to train for, he thinks as the waiter pours some into his glass.

By the end of the meal they’re both drunk – or Nico is drunk, he’s not really sure about Georg, who seems to hold his drink better than anyone he’s ever met. He half wishes Paul was here to liven up the evening, but it’s just the two of them and Nico feels like he can’t hide from Georg, can’t keep it all on lockdown after his confession on the flight from L.A. He almost stumbles when they stand to leave and then finds himself lurching into Georg's arms in the corridor on the way up from the hotel restaurant to their rooms - which seems much further and more complicated than on the way down to dinner. “You're okay,” Georg reassures, holding him upright, “let's get you to bed.”

“Did I do the right thing?” Nico mumbles, hooking his arms around the older man’s neck and looking up into his eyes. “Tell me I did.”

“You did. You're just drunk and tired, it's cool, you're okay.”

Nico isn't really sure if he's okay. His head is spinning and he feels like he might need to throw up soon. And also there's a strong possibility that if he lets go of Georg he may just fall on his face outside the hotel room. He knows he's texted Lewis as well, remembers getting his phone out when Georg was in the bathroom, although for the life of him he can't recall what he said. He grips onto Georg's shoulders, the material of his shirt bunching up beneath Nico's fists. Then he's leaning up on his toes, pressing his lips against Georg's in a very weird ill-advised kiss. Everything about it feels strange, but Nico has a point to prove here. He's not quite sure what it is, just that in his alcohol infused state it seems like a very sensible, logical step. If he's apparently now into men then that means he should be enjoying this, it should be turning him on, he thinks as he tries to push his tongue into Georg's mouth. He's so focused that he almost doesn't register Georg's total lack of response, until Nico feels the pressure of his hands on his shoulders, guiding him back.

“You're drunk.” Georg holds Nico up against the door and slipping a hand into his pocket, retrieves the room key.

Nico wakes fully clothed on top of the covers with the worst hangover he can remember since he won the Championship, but with none of the accompanying joy.

***

“I can't do it,” Nico finds himself saying several hours later, looking up at the departure board and then back at Georg, who's frowning in confusion. His head does not feel okay and he's probably already exceeded the recommended 24 hour dosage of paracetamol.

“What do you mean?” Georg replies. They haven't talked about whatever the hell last night was and Georg seems quite content to pretend it didn't happen, which is fine with Nico. Trying to explain _I'm not attracted to you but I wanted to force myself to be to prove I'm not in love with Lewis Hamilton_ is too fucked up. And no, no. If it's anything at all then it's a sexual thing, some latent hormones brought on by lack of race adrenaline. That's it.

Nico brings a hand up to his face, rubbing over his jaw, visibly in discomfort. His all access F1 pass is in his other hand, digging into the skin with the tightness of his grip.

“I can't go to Budapest. Fuck, I'm sorry. I just…” he glances back at the board again, there's a flight leaving for Ibiza in four hours and he could just avoid all this, the claustrophobia he feels at the thought of being at another race again so soon after Silverstone. “I'm going to see if there's any space on the Ibiza flight.”

Georg looks worried, really fucking worried, Nico notes, almost wishing he hadn't said anything. But he can't do it, can't face it. If he's home with his girls it's okay, he can avoid thinking about this.

“Does this have anything to do with last night, and Lewis?” he asks when Nico returns, having cancelled his flight to Budapest and paid for a seat to Ibiza.

“I don't want to be around racing,” Nico replies. And he recalls far in the back of his mind, Andre Agassi’s words on retirement: _I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion._ Nico doesn't hate racing, but the thought of being so close to it again so soon makes him feel slightly ill. It’s screwing with his head, all this.

Georg takes his hand and leads him over to the seating area of the first class lounge they're in, sitting beside him and resting a hand on his arm as if he’s about to impart a hugely important piece of information. The gesture reminds Nico of the time his mum told him his grandmother was dead.

“You're scheduled for the podium interviews,” Georg says, slowly as if Nico is a small child.

“I’m aware of that,” Nico snaps, standing and walking out onto the viewing deck, gazing out at the tarmac, all the lives in transit. Nico likes airports, likes that sense of possibility - of being able to just pick a place and go there for no other reason than that there's supposedly excellent local wine or they have truffles sourced by unicorns or some shit. Not that he's ever been able to do that, but the possibility is more real now, unicorns aside. The thought of going to Budapest, going to Lewis and all the things he left behind when instead he could go to any other place in the whole fucking world just sucks. He's supposed to be taking ownership of his life, not handing it back to Lewis on a plate.  

“I just don't want to start getting too involved in Formula One again,” Nico explains when Georg follows him. “You know the kind of comments that would prompt. I should never have said I'd do it. Can you say I'm ill or something?” He asks, fully aware of how pathetic that sounds. Once, Lewis had talked him into skipping school when he was visiting just so they could spend one last afternoon together before the holidays ended. He'd made a similar excuse then, except that was to be with Lewis rather than to avoid him.

“ _Are_ you ill?”

“I'm just tired,” Nico replies, and it's possibly the most honest thing he's said all afternoon. They've been filming for the last four days and god with everything else he just wants to get back to Vivian as soon as possible and forget what a mess he keeps making of his life. He hasn't looked at his phone since last night, letting the battery drain down even though his boarding pass is on it. There we go, that's why he can't go to Budapest. Legitimate reasoning. He knows he's got unread WhatsApp messages from Lewis but he needs much more sleep and coffee before reading them. It's easier to let the battery die altogether.

Georg chews on his lip. “You said some things last night,” he begins. Nico could've said _anything_ , he really has no idea. “I'm your friend, aside from anything to do with work. I'm your friend and I know there's things you keep to yourself but for fuck's sake you have to talk to him. I know what I said before about forgetting about it, but you clearly are having trouble with that. That's why you should go to Budapest.”

“I'll talk to him in the summer break,” Nico offers. “Your flight’s boarding.” He points up at the departure board. Georg stands there looking at him for a moment as if he’s about to say more, but then it’s the final call and he really has to go. “Do you want me to give him a message?”

“No message,” Nico says, heart pounding and skin crawling with some hideous hungover anxiety.

There are still a few hours to kill until his flight to Ibiza leaves. He drinks a coffee, wandering around the bookshop and pausing to thumb through Damon Hill’s autobiography. He’s always got on well with Damon. Maybe he’ll call him at some point, go for a beer and ask how unbalancing retirement was at first for him, get some insight.

***

 _I guess I’ll cancel dinner then_ , Lewis types into his iPhone. It’s tough not to feel like everything these days is one step forward and two steps back, both in racing and with Nico. He knows it’s affecting his driving, the weekend shit so far and not looking much better for tomorrow with the pace of the Ferraris here. He should be focussed on racing but it’s so fucking hard. Part of him thinks it would just have been better to keep things as they were at the start of the year, loud and clear that any kind of friendship with Nico was in the past and should stay there. He’d done a decent enough job of maintaining a distance from him when they were teammates that it seems kind of stupid that he’s let this happen now they’re apart, the craving under his skin so intense that he feels like it might take him over at the cost of another world title. He thought they were making some kind of progress but clearly not.

 _I can’t stop thinking about you –_ Nico had messaged last night, followed by a succession of rambling karting memories. He’s never seen Nico so erratic, swinging again from friends to enemies in the space of days and under it all the idea that maybe there’s something stronger than either of those things just waiting to be discovered, if they’ll let it. It’s a bad idea. Lewis knows that. But then everyone in the world tried to convince him that moving from McLaren to Mercedes was suicide and now he’s a three time World Champion, so fuck that. He doesn’t get a reply until the following morning when he’s standing in the garage before the track parade, a nondescript _something came up at home._ Lewis knows it’s bullshit and he’s…fuck it he’s angry.

“Not doing this, man.”

Toto gives him a weird look and yeah, probably shouldn’t be bringing this into the garage. _Hope u enjoy the rest of your life_ he types, thumb hovering over the _enter_ symbol. He doesn’t send it.

That night he eats alone at a romantic Italian restaurant on the banks of the Danube, trying to ignore the ache he feels inside.     


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You didn’t come to Hungary.”
> 
> “No,” Nico replies, glancing at him through his lashes. “I needed to think about some things before seeing you. I needed to figure out if this is about racing, about you representing everything I gave up or, or if it’s something else.”

Lewis, despite his need to get out of whatever fucked up limbo-state himself and Nico are existing in now, stays away.

August begins with the gap to Sebastian back down to fourteen points, Lewis trying to find the positives wherever he can. He’s not at the point of asking himself what he wants more yet - some sort of reconciliation to whatever he has with Nico or a fourth title. It should be clear-cut. The win is more important than anything, more important than something he can’t even make sense of; vague buried feelings that he put to bed years ago. It feels like he can’t have both the title this year and a conclusion to what’s happening with Nico, his focus has to be on one or the other.

It’s for that reason that he turns his phone off for the first week of the summer break, settling in to fun with friends in Colorado, riding dirt bikes up into the mountains and swimming in the lake - anything to distract himself. He’s only back in Monaco for a day though before the knock on the door comes.

Nico looks tired, skin beneath his eyes dark with lack of sleep, hours spent wondering if this is a good idea. “I thought I should come over,” he says as Lewis lets him in, leading him over to the sofa. _Why now?_ Lewis wonders, but doesn’t say. _What changed?_

“Do you want a drink or anything?”

“No, no I’m good.”

“Okay,” Lewis nods, sitting close to him. It feels painfully awkward, like all the friendship and banter they’d managed to recapture since becoming friends again has disintegrated and they’re back to where they were at the start of the year.

“You didn’t come to Hungary.”

“No,” Nico replies, glancing at him through his lashes. “I needed to think about some things before seeing you. I needed to figure out if this is about racing, about you representing everything I gave up or, or if it’s something else.”

Lewis holds his breath, eyes locked with Nico’s. If Nico is playing him here, using him as the sweetener to replace the sugar, he thinks that would be worse than anything else. And Nico can quite frankly just fuck off.

“Did you reach any conclusions?”

Nico smiles at him. “None that make any sense. This has been the weirdest year I’ve had in a long time. Sometimes I miss the rush of winning, sometimes I feel relieved to not have all that pressure on me. I love that I can do whatever I want but at the same time I’m not so sure what it is that I want to do. And then there’s you. I guess I thought in some way we could go back to how it was when we were kids, and it was going like that, wasn’t it?” he pauses, looking away. “Except I wasn’t attracted to you when we were kids. I thought about you a lot then, always when I was going to see you next, what crazy ideas for getting into trouble you’d have in the next city after the next race. I always wanted to be around you but it wasn’t...it wasn’t like this.” He drops his head into his hands, “I can’t stop thinking about you,” whispered into his palms.

Lewis’ hand rests on his forearm, stroking gently before pulling Nico to face him. He looks distraught, Nico, and Lewis’ heart plummets at the anguish on his face.

“I know,” Lewis whispers, “god, I know. It’s the same for me.”

“Fuck, Lewis. I don’t know what the hell is going on here and you’re just sitting there like this is all totally fine, like you’re cool with this and I…”

“I like you,” Lewis confesses, “as more than a friend. Does that make things any clearer?”

No, it doesn’t make things clearer to Nico at all and he searches Lewis’ eyes for some hint of humour, as if it’s all some elaborate joke that’s about to be revealed. Lewis, who is regularly linked with some of the most beautiful supermodels in the world, is confessing that he likes him, is attracted to him. It makes no fucking sense at all.

“I’m married,” Nico says, for lack of anything else to say. It’s easy to focus on that because it’s fact, it’s tangible, he thinks as he touches his wedding ring. It means something stronger and clearer than him and Lewis potentially having some misplaced crush on each other that – if it was going to happen at all – should’ve happened about fifteen years ago.

“I know you are,” Lewis replies. “I know that.” 

“So you know that this is...it’s not happening. Whether you or I want it to.”

“Do you want it to?” Lewis asks.

“I...I don’t know. What about you, when did you realise that you...you know?”  
Lewis bites at the inside of his cheek, wondering how much to give here.  
  
“Over the winter. I kept thinking about how weird it would be, being apart from you for the first time in years. And it became all I could think about, man. Every day. Fuck, you have no idea. I knew we’d grown apart, but we always had racing, always had that in common. The thought of you being a stranger…it kept me awake at night. I didn't know how to fix it.”  
  
“Me too,” Nico confesses, although that’s not quite how it was. There are so many things he could say, words on an endless loop all fighting for dominance in his mind. Yet he can't voice any of them. “I felt like shit and I didn't know why,” he says instead.

Lewis is the cause and the cure and Nico has no idea how to begin contemplating that. Ignoring it is easier and he's been doing an okay job of it until now. Lewis’ thumb strokes over the back his hand and it's maddening, the want in him. It's anger, fury mixed with something deeper. Every race win and loss, the taste of Lewis’ mouth from the lip of every shared champagne bottle, touches that lasted longer than they're supposed to for boys who are just friends.

Nico plays it all over again in his head now and he doesn't understand how he could have been so completely fucking stupid, how he couldn’t have seen that Lewis was so deep under his skin that they were practically part of each other.  
  
Lewis’ palm is sweaty against his own and Nico can’t remember the last time he was so aware of someone else’s body. He aches for the touch, for more, even as he berates himself for it. His body is rebelling against every bit of rationality contained in his mind, because this isn’t safe. Safe is Vivian and Alaïa, being the perfect husband, all the things he gave up racing for.  
  
It isn’t racing that he misses to the point of feeling sick, not really; it’s taken months to reach that realisation. It’s Lewis that he misses, has always missed, since they grew apart so many years ago. The desperate, crushing ache in him that he’s never really understood is all down to Lewis, and as much as he tries to convince himself otherwise he’s aware of it now. He can’t bury it anymore, not with Lewis holding his hand and looking at him like he’s the only light in a world of darkness.

“Talk to me, Nico,” he urges.  
  
But Nico can’t. He just fucking can’t. He pulls his hand free from Lewis’, ignoring the way that the loss of the touch seems to echo all through his skin. He stands, looking down at Lewis. Their lives are so intertwined that it seems laughable, the idea that Nico could just have walked away without even realising what it would do to them both.  
  
“I need to race,” Nico simply says, holding his hand out to Lewis. “Come with me.”

  
***

They drive. The top is down on the Pagoda, the afternoon sun warm on Nico’s face as he drives them along the winding coastal roads towards Nice. Lewis fiddles with the dials on the radio, neither of them paying much attention to the French euro-disco they end up with. It fills the silence and that’s about all that Nico could’ve hoped for.  
  
Nico feels like he can breathe better when finally they reach the circuit and he’s strapped into the kart, as if the simple act of sliding on his helmet has transported him back in time. He flexes his hands on the steering wheel and glances over at Lewis. They can pretend to be children again but the emotions thundering through him, knocking him off balance like he’s been hit by 5G into a corner, are entirely adult.

Things were simpler back then; he wonders if he’d have been able to handle it if this had happened at the time, if it would have made more or less sense than it does now. His foot finds the accelerator and he feels it, feels the rush he’d left behind, the sheer thrill of driving against Lewis. Two halves of a whole.

  
***

They’re silent on the journey back to Monaco, the roads quiet and peaceful, sky beginning to darken and lights from the towns and villages along the coast flickering on, beacons scattered along the coastline.

Nico has never taken it for granted, being born into such beauty, air that’s fragrant with lavender and lemons, endless sunny days and the love of his parents like a cocoon all through childhood. He loves this place and it’s home in a way that he knows it will never truly be to Lewis. He thinks of the council estate back in grey, suburban England, gangs of boys on the corner that had shouted at him, calling him a fucking queer that one time he’d been to visit Lewis in the summer holidays. He remembers looking at himself in the mirror in Lewis’ bedroom, self-consciously raking his hands through his hair and thinking that maybe he should cut it off if that’s what it made people think of him. Lewis had told him to ignore them, to forget it.  
  
“They just hate you ‘cos you’re perfect,” he’d joked, ruffling Nico’s hair and chucking the PlayStation controller at him.

He glances at Lewis now out of the corner of his eye. He’s looking straight ahead, out at the winding curves of the road. The light from an oncoming car flits over his face illuminating the frown lines on his forehead, the set of his mouth. Nico’s chest feels tight, like breathing isn’t easy without actually thinking about it.

Nothing is easy now. Nothing at all.

The tension had melted away from him in the kart, all the stress seeping out of his bones as he’d pulled his helmet on and strapped himself in. The thrill of it felt almost better than driving a Formula One car, because the whole world wasn’t watching, pressure off. There were no press conferences lined up for afterwards, no team bosses to please, no Martin fucking Brundle to be interviewed by. Just him and Lewis and one and a half kilometres of track that they’d raced each other on almost twenty years ago, before anything else mattered.

He thinks of them as they were back then, all their dreams ahead of them. He blinks through misty eyes and crunches the gears badly, slamming on the brakes. The car teeters close to the edge of the rocks, just off the side of the road at a scenic view stop.  
  
“Nico, what the fuck--” Lewis starts to say, but then Nico is twisting in the seat, crushing their lips together. It is unlike any other kiss Nico has ever given before, all roughness and desperation. He can’t equate it to kissing Vivian. He can’t. He puts her out of his mind because he hasn’t met her yet. That’s what he tells himself. He’s fifteen and he’s just been karting with his best friend and now...now…

Nico leans closer, clicking his seatbelt unfastened and shifting over in the seat. They've put the top back up on the car for the drive home and here, just the two of them, it feels as though they're hidden from the rest of the world. Like this is an alternative version of Nico, as if he's looking in on this rather than being the one initiating it.  
  
Lewis’ lips are dry against his, warm and familiar in a way that Nico doesn’t understand. He tastes of victory and ice cream and all the happiness they can’t have. Or maybe that’s just Nico’s memory, placing things that aren’t there. Things that would’ve been there if they’d done this back then. In the evening after a karting race maybe, mouths rich with pizza sauce and the faint chasing sweetness of vanilla ice cream. If they’d done this then.  
  
Lewis’ surprise at Nico’s actions is only momentary, after a second he’s twisting in the seat, stretching back against the smooth navy blue leather, pulling Nico with him. His hands delve beneath Nico’s last season team t-shirt, ghosting up his sides as Nico practically falls onto him. Their kisses are quick, messy, no finesse, no time to stop and think, which suits Nico fine. The steering wheel presses into his hip and the handbrake is solid against his knee and all he can think of is how none of it matters. Nothing matters except for Lewis’ hands on his skin, drawing shivers with the blunt scratch of his nails.  
  
“Shouldn’t be wearing this,” Lewis mutters against the corner of his mouth as he tugs the t-shirt further up. Nico isn’t sure if he means because it’s outdated or because he’s not a Mercedes driver anymore. Or maybe just because Lewis wants to touch him unobstructed. Nico’s palms are sweaty, slipping against the leather as he holds himself up on the edge of the passenger seat, lest he lose his balance and fall into Lewis’ lap. He remembers the reclining lever just as Lewis dips his head to lick at his neck, teeth grazing over his hammering pulse point and eliciting a moan that Nico tries to cover.  
  
“Pull the lever under the seat,” he directs, more confidently than he feels and in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own. Lewis complies, the seat tipping backwards. Nico uses the opportunity to clamber over to the passenger side properly, as gracefully as it’s possible to be in such a situation. He ends up kneeling on the seat, knees bracketing Lewis’ thighs, body covering his as he leans forward. Lewis’ arms are around his neck now and like this it is impossible to avoid looking into those soft brown eyes. He’s beautiful. Nico doesn’t know why he’s never noticed that before.  
  
Frantic kisses give way to softness, to the brush of their tongues, slow and spine-tinglingly perfect. _I could’ve been kissing you my whole life,_ Nico thinks, and he mourns the loss of things he didn’t even know about even as Lewis licks into his mouth as if he was meant to, as if they were born for this.

Lewis reaches for the hem of Nico's t-shirt again, lifting it up slowly this time even as their mouths still move together, reluctant to break the kiss. Nico lets him; the decision long made. He lifts his arms, thighs tensed with the effort of holding himself upright over Lewis’ body. The t-shirt is tossed aside, another barrier between them now gone.

When Nico looks back at Lewis there's desire in his eyes, teeth biting at his lower lip as he slides his hands across Nico's bare chest, thumbs brushing over his nipples and making Nico shiver with sensation. _More_ , is all that Nico can think.

 _More of this, of all of it, of you_.

He isn't even aware that he's said it out loud, all of his defences melting away. _You shouldn't be doing_ this lingers at the back of his mind but if there's anything that his foray into mindfulness taught him it's how to ignore thoughts that aren't useful.  
  
Lewis’ hands are everywhere, sliding up Nico's back, then down across his chest and stomach, resting at the waistband of his jeans. It's as if Lewis is desperate to touch every inch of him, that's how it seems as they share hot open-mouthed kisses, Lewis eventually slipping his hands down both of Nico's lightly muscled arms and linking their fingers together. He presses a kiss to Nico's knuckles, first on his left hand then his right, before letting go and reaching to cup his neck with both hands, cradling his head as if he's something special.

Nico doesn't know where to put his hands and so he rests them on Lewis’ thighs. Even through the thick denim of his jeans Nico can feel the heat pouring from his skin. Lewis’ cock is hard, straining against his jeans, and Nico is thoroughly unprepared for the spike of desire that shudders through him. He presses the palm of his hand to Lewis’ erection, making him gasp, hips jerking forward into the touch. Nico looks up, their eyes meeting in wordless conversation.

Permission asked for and granted without a single word spoken.

They always did have that before, when they were kids, the ability to know what the other was thinking, to get inside each other’s head.  
  
Nico finds himself with his jeans and underwear pushed down to mid-thigh, Lewis’ hand wrapped around him; lazy strokes that are maddeningly leisurely. Not enough. He glances at the damp patch on the front of Lewis’ underwear, staining the material, and is overwhelmed with the need to just fucking touch him, to make him feel a fraction of what Nico is feeling. As if he isn't.

That's how they end up this way, Lewis’ bare arse against the precious upholstery of Nico's favourite car, lying back as Nico’s hand glides over his cock, a teasing pressure. Nico's arm is aching with the effort of holding himself up above Lewis but it's a minor pain. It's nothing to all the hate and desire within him. He kisses Lewis, kisses him and moans into his mouth as Lewis’ hand slips down, gently cupping his balls. If they were still rivals on track Lewis would have the measure of him now, would have so much power it would win him any race he so much as lined up on the starting grid for.

They aren't rivals anymore. They aren't anything, except maybe this.

“Fuck, Nico,” Lewis moans. Actually moans. Nico can't process the undoing of Lewis. He thinks briefly how maybe the last few years would've been different if he'd known he could've done this to each other then. It cheapens them though, it's not about rivalry. It would be easier if it was.  
  
Nico falls as if from so far, elbows either side of Lewis’ head, any thoughts of mutual release forgotten. Lewis’ hand on him is all that matters, the steady movement of it, the way his thumb swipes over the head of Nico's dick, pressing into the weeping slit, the twist of fingers that makes him groan and sob and bury his face against Lewis’ shoulder.  
  
He comes like that, shooting hot and wet between them, come coating his stomach and dripping down onto Lewis’ t-shirt. Lewis half-holds him through it, stroking his fingers through his hair with more affection than Nico can stand. He feels utterly exhausted, boneless and almost peaceful with the release. He doesn't even protest when Lewis wipes his fingers on the seat, says nothing when Lewis brushes their lips together again, thumbs tracing over his cheekbones, through the scratchy stubble that covers his jaw.

Their eyes meet as Lewis gently draws the tip of one finger across Nico's throat, across the bob of his Adam's Apple. Nico swallows hard and Lewis’ finger follows the movement.

It occurs to Nico that Lewis knew about this long before he did, but it doesn't feel like losing somehow, being the last to realise. Lewis could destroy him now, could close his hands around Nico's neck and press. But Nico could do the same to him. Neither of them would. And Nico, Nico doesn't want to, wants to stay here in Lewis’ arms and never let anything come between them again. It is terrifying, all the different parts of himself, of who he thought he was, rebelling against each other.  
  
Nico comes back to himself slowly, the tingling pleasure of his orgasm seeping away as he realises he's half naked and sticky, and that Lewis’ cock is still hard and leaking between them. He reaches down somewhat awkwardly to touch him, but Lewis catches his wrist before he can.

“You don't have to,” Lewis says. And Nico knows that but fuck, he really, really wants to. Has probably wanted to for years without even realising it. And besides, he does have manners.

“Let me,” Nico replies, and Lewis does.  
It doesn't take much, Lewis’ cock hot and pulsing in Nico's hand, slick with pre-come.

All Nico can think is how much Lewis wants this, wants him, and probably wants even more than this. How long has he been dreaming of this, is it really only since the start of the year or earlier?

“Did you want this when we were teenagers?” Nico whispers as Lewis bucks his hips up, fucking into Nico's hand.

“No...I don't know,” Lewis grits out, “fuck, Nico please.”

“When we shared hotel rooms, do you remember? Did you want me? Were you jealous of Vivian then too?” he adds, bitterly, unnecessarily.

“No. Nico, fuck, just shut the fuck up.” And as if he doesn't trust Nico to do so, Lewis pulls him into a kiss, all teeth clashing in messy desperation. Lewis comes like that, spilling over Nico's hand as their tongues slide together, Lewis clinging to Nico, shivering through the aftershocks of his orgasm, achingly vulnerable.

They stay like that for a while, until the light from a passing car washes over them, Nico's senses awakened to where they are, to what could happen if someone were to have witnessed this. He climbs off Lewis awkwardly, righting his jeans as best as he can and fishing his t-shirt off the floor. The air in the car seems ever so close, the scent of them both thick and heavy, like a teenage boy’s bedroom. Nico laughs at the thought of it, because now isn't _then_. And he should know better. Lewis raises an eyebrow in question, but says nothing.  
  
They drive back with the windows wound down, the temperature starting to dip and distaste seeping through every cell of Nico's body. Yet still, he doesn't protest when Lewis rests a hands on his thigh, instead he covers it with his own almost without thinking about it.

  
***

They pull into the underground parking garage, both lost in thought.

“Does this feel as bad for you as it does for me?” Nico asks when he's switched the engine off. Lewis doesn’t answer straight away, the pressure of his hand on Nico’s thigh, gently drawing patterns, is all that Nico can focus on. It feels as though all the air has been sucked out of the car. Lewis opens his mouth to speak and Nico’s skin crawls with some phantom rash. What is he doing? What the hell are they both doing?  
  
“Yeah,” Lewis says, finally, “because I know how it’s going to end.”  
  
There’s no arguing with that, and there’s nothing further that can be done here.  
  
“Hmm.” A beat. “Do you want to fuck me?” Nico asks suddenly, before he even knows what he’s saying. There’s a sharpness to the words, scornful.  
  
“Is that all you think this is, that I just want to have sex with you?” Lewis’ eyes widen. There's a sadness in them that Nico instantly hates.  
  
“Well you didn’t seem averse to the idea half an hour ago when you had your hand inside my jeans,” Nico snaps, turning away. He doesn't want to acknowledge Lewis’ pain. He's the one with a wife and family, not Lewis. Lewis has no ties to anything, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Yet even as he thinks it he knows it's not true, that the Lewis of today, all charm and casual celebrity, is still the same Lewis who cautiously confessed his fears that no one would ever accept him in F1 due to the colour of his skin, that he would always feel like an outsider. Nico had replied that he never had to feel that way around him, that Nico was his best friend no matter what. Always.  
  
“If it makes it easier for you then yes,” Lewis says, “I want you like that. But that’s not all there is to it, man. And I’m not going to go along with that just because you find it easier to lie to yourself.”  
  
“I’m not lying about anything. Shit, we should never have gone karting today, it was a bad idea.”  
  
“You looked happier when you got out of the kart today than I’ve seen you look since Ibiza.”  
  
“I’m fine, it’s all fine.”  
  
He’s not fine. If he was fine he wouldn’t have just cheated on Vivian, wouldn’t be sitting here now contemplating having sex with his former best friend in the hope that one fuck will get all these unwelcome feelings and thoughts out of his head. He knows, if he’s honest, that it won’t. It’s less than an hour ago that he came, trembling in Lewis’ arms, and the release was so blissful yet just a short reprieve. He craves it again, the certainty of Lewis’ arms around him.  
  
Nico leans his forehead against the steering wheel, closing his eyes for a moment. He doesn’t know what to do, for the first time in years. His structured life has fractured at the seams because he thought change was what he wanted. For the first time in his life he doesn’t know what comes next. It’s not like the anguish he felt in Austin a couple of years ago, when he’d spent two days drunk and broken in his hotel room, wallowing in emptiness and doubt. He’d come out of that more determined than ever and it had worked, he’d grown stronger. A year of burying his emotions has taken its toll though, and now it’s as if they’re all flooding up to the surface and he’s forgotten what to do with them, how to process everything that’s in his head.  
  
He takes a deep breath to calm himself, lets himself focus on the feel of Lewis’ hands now stroking through his hair. It feels oddly intimate, more so in a way than getting each other off earlier. It would be easier to make this all about sex but it isn’t, and somehow that makes it so much worse, the care in Lewis’ touch, the affection.  
  
“It’s gonna be okay,” Lewis whispers, “it will.”  
  
“How?” Nico asks, sitting up and turning to face him. Lewis’ hands fall away and Nico misses the contact instantly.  
  
“It just will.”  
  
“You always were a bad liar.”  
  
“And you were always too practical,” Lewis says. “Look, man, I fly to Spa tomorrow. I don’t want to leave things like this with us.”  
  
“It’s better if we don’t talk about it,” Nico replies. “I need to go.” His phone vibrates in his pocket and he pulls it out, thankful for the interruption.  
  
_Good day with Lewis? Will you be home soon? xx_  
  
There’s a tightness in his chest. There’s a stain on the leather of the seat where Lewis had wiped his hand on it. Nico feels violently ill. He shoves his phone back in his pocket, pulling Lewis to him, hands fisted in his t-shirt as he kisses him, hard.  
  
“Please don’t push me, Lewis,” Nico says. “You should go, I’ll follow you in a few minutes.”  
  
Lewis looks at him for a long moment and Nico can almost see the thoughts whirring around in his head. He opens his mouth as if to protest but then decides otherwise.  
  
“Lewis,” Nico says when Lewis is half out of the car “call me from Spa. I won’t be asleep.”  
  
Lewis turns and nods at him before walking away. Nico watches as he waits for the elevator, breathing deeply as he scrubs at the stain before smoothing down his clothes, trying to convince himself he’s still the same man who partied till 9am the night after winning the Championship, not a care in the world. 

***

“Hey, good day then? Who won?” Vivian asks as Nico walks into the kitchen. He drinks her in with his eyes, the way one hand strokes softly over her bump as she pours some soy sauce into a pan on the stove with the other. The wok hisses with the inclusion of the liquid, the sound like a steam train full blast through Nico’s head.  
  
“He did,” Nico manages, “I went easy on him for a change,” he laughs. Hollow. Lewis hadn’t looked as though he’d won anything, his face thoroughly devoid of victory as he’d turned back and glanced at Nico as he stepped into the elevator.  
  
Nico hovers beside Vivian for a moment, forcing himself to be himself, as if he knows who that is anymore. It must be all over him, it must be written in his eyes and the quiver of his lips, in the untidy rumple of his clothes and his hands that can’t keep still. All she has to do is look at him and she’ll see his deception. But she doesn’t see it. Instead she turns down the heat beneath the pan and wraps her arms around him, kissing him softly on the lips.  
  
Nico thinks his legs might give way, but they don’t, of course they don’t. Vivian guides his hand down to rest on her belly, and he moves to stand behind her, where she can’t look in his eyes. He rests his chin on her shoulder and presses a kiss to her cheek, feeling their daughter kicking in her belly. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ is all he can think. And he opens his mouth to tell her everything, but then dinner needs tending to and Nico is overwhelmed by the need to see Alaïa, as if having her tiny arms around him will make all this go away.  
  
“I put her down half an hour ago,” Vivian says though, when he asks. “Tantrums galore, would you believe. I guess it’s…what do they call it, the terrible two’s.”  
  
Nico nods and tries to stop pacing the kitchen. “Tantrums over what?”  
  
Vivian frowns for a moment. “Nothing big.”  
  
“Vivi?”  
  
“She wanted you to read her favourite bedtime story,” Vivian says. “It’s my fault, I told her you’d be back in time. But it’s okay, she was fine in the end. We had a fun bathtime and I read her the one about the frog instead.” She smiles at him and it’s genuine. It really doesn't matter to her that he wasn’t back in time. It matters to Nico. He feels sick. He feels worse than after any bad race, worse than all those times stuck on the second step.  
  
“We lost track of time, sorry,” he says, and it all flashes through his mind in hideous detail, Alaïa clutching her rabbit book, tears streaming down her face because Papa isn’t there to read it to her; and Lewis touching him and kissing him, making him forget that this is where he belongs.  
  
“It’s okay, it happens,” Vivian says. But Nico’s bottom lip is trembling and he has to bite down on it just to stop himself from crumbling. “Dinner in twenty minutes?”  
  
“Yeah, sounds good,” Nico says, clearing his throat. “I can help, is there anything you need me to do?” He picks up a packet of pak-choi from the work surface and just stares at it.  
  
“It’s all under control, no help needed. You go shower if you want, you look exhausted. Nico?” she says as he turns to walk away.

“Did anything happen with Lewis?”

He stops, completely still for a moment before facing her. “Like what?”  
She studies him carefully for a moment, winding her fingers through her long blonde hair. Nico loves her, loves her so much. His eyes are pleading.

“It doesn't matter,” she says, “go and shower.”  
  
Nico does as she says, in relief. He looks in on his sleeping little girl on the way, stroking her hair back from her forehead and bending down to kiss her.  
  
He turns the shower on hot, almost as far as it will go. Stepping under the spray he allows himself the luxury of just breathing, deep breaths in and out as he scrubs his skin clean. Calm, he has to find the calm that he carried with him all of last year, the ability to push the negative thoughts away. It's in there somewhere for sure. Yet he can't find it. And all he can hear in his mind is Lewis’ voice over and over again, _I know how it's going to end._

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to suppress the wetness that isn't from the water of the shower. It's so long since he last cried, that day back in Frankfurt when he'd called Toto and choked out his intention to leave, still riding that wave of joy and success.  
  
_Don't call_ he texts Lewis when he's towelled himself dry, _it's better if you don't._ But all the while, he knows that Lewis will, that he can't not. And he knows that he'll wait up for that call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments on the previous chapters. :) 
> 
> I'm embarrassingly crap at writing about actual racing, which is why the karting scene is so blink-and-you'll-miss-it, sorry!


	10. Chapter 10

It is four days later when Lewis finally calls. Four days. It feels like a month, the hours moving impossibly slowly. There’d been a point where Nico had thought that maybe Lewis had heeded his words, that it was going to end in a barrage of silence.

It all eats away at him, the guilt a constant presence that drags him further and further into despair. Sometimes he’ll find his mind wandering, zoning out of conversations even as he tries to get a hold of himself. Once or twice he catches Vivian watching him with concern in her eyes and he knows he has to stop this, he has to forget it all. She kisses him and he wants to tell her everything, every little fear and mistake, but it would be unfair.

One night he goes out with friends, determined to drink the bar dry enough to blot it all out for a few hours. In the morning it all just seems so much worse, exacerbated by the thudding pain in his head and the erratic stutter of his heart. Looking in the mirror, bleary eyed and sick, he wonders if the only real part of himself existed on the racetrack, if everything else is just a shell formed in the image of the man he thought he was supposed to be.

He’s checked Lewis’ Instagram more times than he wants to admit even to himself. He watched one of the sponsor events on Facebook Live, Lewis and Valtteri all smiles and handshakes, watched them fooling around playing video games together. Nico’s never been the jealous type, always secure in himself and his abilities, positive work ethic and strength drawn from those around him. Yet watching them he’d felt a deep envy for all they have and all he’d left behind.

He’s kept himself busy, playing with Alaïa when she’s not at nursery, going mountain biking up to the top of Mont Agel; anything to occupy his mind.

Nico is still awake when Lewis finally calls at one in the morning, descaling the kettle while a print of Wings of Desire plays on TV in the original German, Bruno Ganz wandering despairingly through the desolate landscape of a divided Berlin, desperate to experience love and humanity.

Nico turns the volume down a bit on the remote, stretching out on the couch having repositioned all the kitchen appliances three times, blankly drinking in what’s happening on the screen with a yawn. When did he start seeing metaphors for his own life in dreary movies? Lewis is not the sparkling technicolour in a sepia-drenched existence; that just isn’t how things are at all.

When the caller ID flashes up on the screen Nico doesn’t answer straight away, stepping out onto the balcony and closing the French doors behind him before sliding his finger across the touchscreen. He grips the phone so tightly, looking out into the night. The stars are bright above the ocean, the Principality so familiar. It doesn’t comfort him in the same way it used to though; he’s always felt so safe and secure here but now it feels as though the thoughts inside his head are conspiring to undo him. There’s an idea in his mind that if he could just race again, just one time, one lap at Spa or Monza perhaps then that would fix all this, if they could be rivals again.

“How’s Spa?” he asks.

“Same as usual. Grey, full of journalists,” Lewis replies, laughing nervously. Nico smiles, thinking about the race there last year, the unit of his team around him that have now fallen away, the celebrations they’d had.

“The car didn’t feel great out there yesterday either,” Lewis continues awkwardly, although right now that seems like the least of his problems. “Will you be watching? Tomorrow I mean?”

“I, erm yeah I guess I could,” Nico replies.

“I’d like that, knowing you were watching.”

“Yeah, I mean I haven’t watched more than one race properly this season. I tried to, but…”

“Even the ones you were at?”

“You know how it is, corporate hospitality. Will you think of me,” Nico whispers before he can stop himself, “at the chequered flag?”

“Shit, man, if you knew how much I think of you at the moment you wouldn’t even need to ask,” Lewis replies. “You feel so far away, Nico.”

“Well, just a couple of hours flight.”

“That’s not what I mean. Even the other day, when we…”

“Don’t. Please.”

“You know I didn’t even think you’d pick up. Fuck I need to see you again, I need to touch you. You have no idea.”

“Lewis, we can’t,” Nico says vehemently, pacing the balcony. “This isn’t something that we can—”

“But you want to,” Lewis interrupts.

Nico stops moving, a hand on the railings to steady himself.

“I know that it’s the same for you, Nico. I know that you need this just as much as I do. I’m not trying to fuck up your marriage or anything. It just happened and I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“I’m not gay,” Nico says blankly. It seemed like a better defence in his head.

“I’m not saying you are. But whatever this is with us - doesn’t it deserve some attention, after everything we’ve been through?”

Nico glances back inside the apartment, the sound of Alaïa crying breaking through his thoughts. “I don’t know what it is that you expect to happen here,” he says as sternly as he can muster.

“I don't know. I just know that I like being friends with you again, being close to you.”

“Friends don’t do what we did last week. I can't do this. I feel guilty enough as it is,” Nico says.

“So you’re happy to just forget this whole thing then?” Lewis sighs down the phone. “That’s cool with you?”

“We can try and go back to how things were before Ibiza.”

“Yeah,” Lewis says, flatly. “Yeah sure, man.”

“I just think that we--” Nico starts to say, but the line has gone dead. Lewis is through talking.

***

In Monza it rains heavily on the Saturday. Nico has heard nothing from Lewis and spent the intervening days since Spa talking himself into and out of getting a flight to Milan. He has no desire to be there as the reigning Champion, not this time. He doesn’t want to do the Sky interviews and go over the same questions that everyone seems addicted to asking him: " _Do you miss racing?” “Would you consider coming back?” “What have you got planned for the future?”_

Aside from meeting his new baby daughter someday very soon he has no plans that can be confirmed to the media. And if he goes to Milan he’s doing this his way, as low key as possible. It’s a bad idea and he knows it, but at the same time he can’t leave things as they are and talking about it on the phone just isn’t going to cut it.

His flight lands late on Saturday evening, bleak rain-soaked streets blurring out of the car windows, the elegant facades of the neo-classical mansions almost dreary in the falling twilight. He decided on the Sheraton, for the simple reason that it’s where Lewis had stayed the previous two years, even though the Westin is slightly better.

Once he’s settled into his suite and stood beneath the soothing heat of the shower for ten minutes he orders room service and checks his phone. He’s playing with fire, he knows, moving from wanting one thing to something entirely different with such fluidity that he’s basically all over the place. Vivian has noticed it too, encouraging him to go to and see Lewis even as he was half-hoping she’d talk him out of it. At the back of his mind always is the thought that overrides every ounce of common sense he has: _I want him._

 _I’m here if you want to talk,_ Nico texts, after he’s finished his rather indulgent meal of Pizzoccheri Valtellinesi, washed down with a glass of Barbera for a bit of added courage.

_Here?_

_In Milan._

Nico’s phone starts ringing a moment later.

“What are you doing in Milan?”

“Probably making a huge mistake, but I needed to see you.”

“You can’t just play around like this, you know. I’d be happy that you’re here but I don’t fucking know if you’re still going to want to see me tomorrow or the next day so what is it that you want me to say?”

“I want to see you. I’ll still want to see you any other day. It’s not easy, Lewis. It’s not easy for me to say these things.”

“Yeah,” Lewis replies. “Man, this isn’t exactly fun for me either. Are you coming to the race tomorrow?”

“No, I thought it was best if we kept this as quiet as possible. I’ll watch on TV, got my Lewis Hamilton cap and everything.”

Lewis chuckles at that and the sound is heartwarming.

“So, 69 poles,” Nico says, voice dropping lower, “It’s an amazing achievement, Lewis.”

_I’m proud of you._

“Thanks, feels unreal.”

“Would have to be 69 hey,” he continues, stretching back on the bed. “Quite the number to take the record with.”

“Yeah, why’s that?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

“Such a flirt, aren't you.”

Nico pauses, enjoying the thrill that makes him shudder, the sound of Lewis’ voice down the phone.  “Only with you,” Nico is cringing even as he's still speaking. The silence is strained, Lewis making a sound low in his throat that Nico half-identifies as arousal.

“Nico. Fuck, what are we doing? God, I need to see you.”

“Tomorrow, we'll talk tomorrow.”

Talk, Nico reminds himself when he hangs up the phone. They have to talk. He has to get control of the situation.

***

“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” Lewis asks the following day. Nico had surprised him by showing up at the track in the helicopter that was due to take Lewis back to the city.

There’s a shivery feeling that tingles through Nico’s spine as the heli rises high over the track, the memory of the crowd singing along with him on the podium last year still so fresh, so amazing.

Nico glances at Lewis by his side. His skin still glistens with champagne, a sparkle in his eyes. He’s leading the Championship for the first time this season and the scent of a fourth title is heady even though there’s still just under half the season to go. Victory suits him, it sings from every pore, from the smile that he can’t wipe from his face. He looks beautiful, Nico thinks, and it would be so, so easy just to lean in and kiss the smile from those lips; catch him by surprise and make him gasp. Like before.

Dinner is dangerous, but that’s something his life is lacking these days, something he’s not supposed to want. Dinner is the two of them alone, far from home and with a table full of feelings.

“Dinner sounds great,” Nico replies, leaning his head on Lewis’ shoulder as the Brit rests his hand on his thigh, the track disappearing into the vast wooded expanse of Monza Park below them.

 -

They go their separate ways back in Milan, making plans to meet later that night.

Nico heads to the hotel gym, slips his earphones in and lets the confusion flow out of him as his feet pound the treadmill. Running but going nowhere, no conclusions in his head, as if he's in a loop and everything leads back to Lewis. The sweat pours off him, the Milanese traffic rushing past beyond the window alongside trams that look like they’re from a couple of centuries ago. He could run to the ends of the earth and still have to face himself at the end of it all, still have to face Vivian and Alaïa, and someday soon, his new daughter. But he can’t deny himself Lewis, and it’s easier now, easier away from home to just give in to it a little more.

The workout clears his head to some extent. It’s only Lewis, he decides when he gets back to his hotel suite, aching and tired but in a good way; it’s a feeling he enjoys, one of accomplishment. It’s only the same Lewis he’s known all his life, the Lewis that he’s always known how to handle in one way or another. He can have dinner with Lewis without it being anything other than the same level of normal that it’s always been.

He’s still musing over this as he carefully shaves, forcefully making eye contact with himself in the mirror. He dresses smart-casual in a navy shirt and grey trousers, pondering over which aftershave to use and then berating himself because it’s not a fucking date. It’s two old friends having a casual meal. It’s...fuck. He sits on the sofa, phone in hand. Vivian answers on the third ring. It’s so good to hear her voice, even though it’s just been a couple of days. She talks him through every update on Alaïa, how she’s excited to meet her little sister. It feels so good, so real.

“I’m having dinner with Lewis tonight,” Nico says as the conversation starts to wind down. He’s not entirely sure why he’s telling her, it’s nothing, it’s not important, just something he needs to get out of his system.

“That’s nice. Tell him I said hi.” Vivian replies, “you should ask him over to our place for dinner sometime, I haven’t seen him since Ibiza.”

“Yeah, maybe I will.” He looks around the room, ultra-modern and sterile. Hotel living is something he never really enjoyed all those years on the road. This is the point he should end the call, he knows.

“You know that I love you.” He tells her, and he can almost feel her smile through the phone. “More than anything. You know that?”

“I know, Nico,” she says softly, “of course I know.”

He takes a deep breath, and now is the time to say goodbye. There’s nothing else, there’s…

“I kissed Lewis,” he whispers, “The day we went karting last month. I’m so sorry Vivi. It was nothing, I...I don’t know what I was thinking.” It isn’t the full truth but it’s all he can give at this point.

She is silent, but only for a moment. “It’s not surprising really, is it?” She says, and her voice is soft, honeyed and filled with empathy, as if she understands what Nico doesn’t. It frustrates him, even though he won’t admit it. “You’ve known him all your life, you’ve always been together and now you’re not. This year, it hasn’t been as easy as you make out, Nico.”

“I’m fine, I--”

“No,” she interrupts. “You’re really not, and I haven’t said anything because I wanted you to be the one to address it. I’m not blind, I know that you don’t sleep as well now, that you’re afraid of what comes next, that you’re worried about the future. I’m here for you and I will be, always. The times you’ve been around Lewis, those are the times you’ve seemed most relaxed, happier, more like yourself. It’s like the two of you can’t function properly without each other.”

“I’m not having some big crisis or something, Vivi. I’m happy with you, I love you and Alaïa. It was just a weird moment.” Nico says, sighing.

“I know you love us, I do. But if it was nothing then you wouldn’t be telling me. You’re telling me because it’s important to you.”

“It’s...I don’t want it to be,” he acquiesces.

“Be happy, Nico. As long as you come home to me, that’s all I care about. I don’t want to know any details, I really don’t. I just want to see you smile again, and if he helps with that, then it’s alright.”

Nico doesn’t know what to say, but then Alaïa is crying in the background and Vivian is saying goodnight. “I love you,” he tells her again. And he means it, more than ever. But then there’s Lewis.

***

“Should you really be having that?” Nico asks as the waitress sets down an enormous Oreo milkshake in front of Lewis, whose eyes widen in childlike joy at the sight. They’re in an American style diner, low-lit and kitted out in deep colours, the floor a dizzying black and white checked that makes Nico think of flags being waved and adrenaline surging through his blood.

“I’ll work it off in the gym tomorrow, don’t worry about me, man. You on the other hand, red wine and choosing the burger with the second most calories on the menu…” he laughs and Nico can’t help but smile, shaking his head as Lewis offers him the straw.

“Just because I’m not driving doesn’t mean I’ve given up exercise.”

“Yeah sure, that’s what you say now. You’ll be growing a tache and piling on the pounds in no time.” Lewis jokes.

“You know my dad would have you by the balls for sure for saying that, right?” Nico laughs.

“I’m kidding,” Lewis says, drumming his fingers against the menu before standing it back up on the table. “You’re the only Rosberg I want near my balls,” he adds, voice low, his calf rubbing against Nico’s beneath the table. Nico looks around, but the place is half empty, no one is paying any attention to the two of them, sitting opposite one another in a half-hidden booth at the back of the diner. “Sorry, too much?”

“Well...I honestly don’t know what’s acceptable anymore, with us.” Nico frowns. “I’m lost.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Nico, this thing with us, it exists right? I’m not imagining things here, I’m not pushing you into something you don’t want?”

“I don’t know what I want, Lewis. I thought I knew, and now...look can we not have this conversation in public.”

“We need to have it though, don’t we?”

Nico can’t really deny that, but there’s a safety to being out in a restaurant that will be entirely non-existent if he’s alone with Lewis somewhere. He needs to be clear headed, he realises. The wine was purely to take the edge off but it would be easy to have it as an excuse for any stupid decisions he might make. He pushes the glass to one side and orders a mineral water when the waitress next walks by.

They fall into conversation about safe subjects then, about politics and Lewis’ music, which Nico politely denounces as not his kind of thing, but with a healthy dose of respect because he can see that it is actually important to Lewis. They trade opinions on Game of Thrones, which Lewis is up to date with despite seemingly being everywhere and doing everything all at once. There’s a little sliver of jealousy sparking at the base of Nico’s spine when Lewis practically swoons talking about how he’d chatted to Kit Harington before the race earlier in the day. It prompts a ton of questions in his mind, things he’s never thought of before. And the truth is that in all this time he’s never stopped to think of how this is for Lewis, never questioned what might be running through his head.

“Are you gay?” Nico whispers curiously when they’ve finished eating. At that moment the waitress appears, smiling widely at the two of them, not a spark of recognition on her face. “Would you like to see the dessert menu? The cheesecake’s to die for.”

Despite death by cheesecake seeming like it might be preferable to whatever the rest of the evening has to hold, they both decline, asking for the check instead, splitting it amicably like friends instead of whatever they now are.

The streets are quiet when they step outside and Nico is glad they both decided to walk here; there’s something about the thought of driving back together that bothers him, perhaps the latent memory of the last time they were alone in a car. They walk slowly back towards the hotel, the evening warm, sky cloudless in contrast to the previous day.

“I’m bi, in answer to your question back there,” Lewis says, breaking the silence. His hands are shoved in his pockets, snapback pulled forward, shielding his eyes so that Nico can’t read him.

“I guess I always knew but it was easier to ignore it most of the time. There's been a few guys, it's not just you. Although...everything was always you. My whole life, since I started karting outside England, it was always about you. Beating you, being friends with you. The thing I realised this year with Valtteri is that he can’t touch me, he can do whatever the fuck he wants on or off the track, we can be friends or not friends. But he’ll never be able to get to me the way you did. You hurt me so much, some of the things…”

“You hurt me too, Lewis. It goes both ways.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something?” He stops walking and turns to face Nico, dark eyes serious. “It hurt because we were more than just teammates.”

“We were friends. We _are_ friends.”

“Yeah. Easier if that’s all we were.”

Nico doesn't reply.

They reach the corner of the street, the Sheraton looming before them. It’s only nine-thirty and the night is still young, bars and restaurants filled with revellers, a fair amount of them probably motorsport-connected. The best thing would be to say their goodnight here, leave this in the street and head back to their respective rooms alone. Nico thinks of the impersonal decor, the idea of lying there for another night, sleepless as the city lives outside, the F1 circus already packing up and preparing to head to the other side of the world. He shivers.

“Um, you didn’t want to talk in public,” Lewis says, lifting off his cap and smoothing his fingers through his hair, trying to tame it. He must see the hesitation in Nico’s eyes. “I can’t go to Singapore with things still like this, man. You gotta give me something.”

Nico steps away from him, looking up at the sky. It’s a full moon, thick and bright, muddied by the oceans across it. The moonlight catches the leaves of the trees that line the street, turning them silvery grey. It reminds him of a holiday years ago, gnarled old olive trees, twisted and ever-reaching under a sky full of stars, absorbing all the dreams and hopes of a boy and his unlikely best friend. He sighs, asking for Lewis’ room number, and they do the sad old dance of going up separately a few minutes apart, the way that men who cheat on their wives would probably do.

***

“Drink?” Lewis asks, walking over to the minibar.

“Just water, thanks. Nice room,” Nico says, for something to say. It’s practically identical to his own.

“Yeah, sick compared with some of the hotels we used to stay in, right? Back in those days.”

Nico hmms. It feels like Lewis is a ball of nervous energy and it’s unsettling, watching him moving around the room tidying things away.

“I miss having a best friend,” Lewis says, almost confessionally. “I thought we were unbreakable, y’know.” He sets his water down on the coffee table, closing the space between Nico and himself, touching a hand to the blond’s shoulder.

“People grow up,” Nico replies, his voice thin, strained. He feels off balance now, away from the relative normality of having dinner out together in a public place. “Things change.”

“They don’t always have to change for the worse. If you want honesty,” he pauses, “I’m lonely, Nico, without you. The fight doesn't feel the same.”

Nico steps away. “So you want me to come back just to make you feel better?” he asks tersely. “You haven’t screwed me over enough with all your mind games, that now you can’t function without it?”

Lewis’ face falls. “That’s not what this is and you know it. You’re deflecting because you don’t want to talk about us.”

“What are _we_ , Lewis, as you seem to think you know so much?” Nico says, softer.

“Friends who want to be more but don’t know how to be,” Lewis offers. “You want me and you can’t deal with it, and you’re worried that retiring was the wrong choice because now you’re lost without racing, without me.”

“Everything in the world isn’t all about you,” Nico snaps.

Lewis flinches, rubbing a hand across his face with a heavy sigh. “I guess you’d better leave then,” he whispers, “if I’m wrong about everything.” He sits down on the ornate, uncomfortable couch and waits. Nico remains standing there, looking out at the Milanese night. The lights in Lewis’ room are bright, harsh on Nico’s eyes. He walks to the door, switches a couple of lamps on before flicking the main lights off and taking a seat in the armchair half-facing Lewis.

“I couldn’t face another year like 2016,” he says quietly, “holding in how shit I was feeling because I was terrified that if I showed you even the slightest sign of weakness then you’d use it against me, that it would all slip away again. There were times I felt so low, so exhausted by it all, and even Alaïa could sense it. It took everything I had to stay focussed, Lewis. I’m not like you, it doesn’t work the same way for me.”

He looks up to find Lewis watching him intently, seriously, absorbing every word. “I couldn’t do it again, not after winning. If it was just racing, if it was just how it used to be when we were in karts, or even at Williams or Mercedes at the beginning, even against Michael. But you and me, fighting it out again after I’d already won the title – I couldn’t put myself or Vivian through it again. And it _was_ the right decision, deep down I know that. But the truth is I feel empty, Lewis. Everything is different, and the only time I’ve felt like myself in months was when I…when we…” he trails off.

“When you took control and went for something you wanted.”

“Yes. If we could really be friends again then maybe it would be better.”

“Maybe it would.”

“Yeah. Except it’s not enough,” Nico confesses. It’s been going round in his head ever since that night on the way back from Nice. Wanting Lewis. Wanting to know how it would be if they did more. Those thoughts are becoming harder to ignore. He stands and holds a hand out to Lewis, who steps fluidly into his embrace.

“You should talk to someone,” Lewis says as he folds Nico into his arms. “It makes sense that it’ll take time to find your way, when racing’s been your life for so long. Get some therapy or something.”

“I’m not one of your L.A. friends. What would I say, that my life is falling apart because I gave my ex best friend a handjob?” Nico laughs bitterly, resting his head against Lewis’ shoulder and just letting himself be held.

“Your life’s not falling apart, man. Things are just different,” Lewis whispers, his lips against Nico’s ear, his arms sliding soothingly up and down his back. Nico closes his eyes, trying to imagine for a moment that they’re back in a time when neither of them were champions, a time before they realised the strength of the power they hold over one another.

He turns his head a little, lips brushing the side of Lewis’ neck, along the looping letters of his tattoo. Lewis tilts his head, baring the skin to Nico’s mouth, moaning softly at the touch of his lips, melting against him. They stand like that for a while, Nico pressing fluttering, barely-there kisses against Lewis’ neck, intoxicated by the ocean-clean scent of his cologne and roiling thud of his pulse, their arms wound around each other.

Eventually Nico takes a step back, cradling Lewis’ face in his hands and looking into his eyes. “What is it that you want from me?” he asks, and he’s honestly wondered for a while, since the parking garage of the Roccabella and Lewis’ admission that he knows how this will end.

“Whatever you can give me,” Lewis replies and Nico can see that he wants to say more but holds it back. He doesn’t press; the moment is fragile and tender, and Nico knows a wrong word from either of them could shatter it.

In truth he doesn’t know what, if anything he can give. He’s been pretending since he stepped onto the plane in Nice that this trip wasn’t leading to this moment, but it was all just bullshit. He came here for this, for Lewis. He strokes his fingers roughly against the scratchy lines of beard that frame Lewis’ face, closing his eyes as he presses their lips together.

It is as intoxicating as the first time, kissing his former teammate, feeling him unravel right there into the kiss. Lewis moans a little and Nico takes the opportunity to push his tongue into his mouth, feeling the control pass between them, Lewis relinquishing little by little. They kiss, hungrily and with a vigour that Nico never thought he could feel for anyone but Vivian. He can feel Lewis’ dick, hard against his own, and delights in the tiny noises he emits when Nico presses up closer against him. It all floods back, primal need surging through Nico. It’s the same rush as winning, he realises as he breaks the kiss just long enough to pull Lewis’ t-shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor and allowing Lewis to unbutton his shirt, which shortly follows suit.

It’s nice like this, it feels more real than last time in the car, but at the same time it’s still as if it is happening in a universe where Nico no longer belongs, far from home. It is easier, in a way. Their lips are crimson-flushed from kissing, pupils dilated, eyes soft with affection and desire for one another. Nico presses a kiss to Lewis’ collarbone, right hand splayed against the lion as his left brushes over the sensitive nub of Lewis’ nipple. He’s often wondered why Lewis went in for so much ink, why he wanted to change himself. It occurs to him now that maybe it wasn’t that after all, that maybe he’s just been learning who he is all this time, marking his body with all that’s important, whereas Nico can’t bear the thought of sharing that much of who he is with the rest of the world.

“You’re fucking beautiful,” Lewis whispers, and there’s that look in his eyes again, soft with wonderment. Nico doesn’t feel beautiful, he feels damaged, as if life has played a trick on him, letting him think he was so self-aware while all the time he was on the verge of _this._

His hands find the waistband of Lewis’ jeans, making light work of his belt, desperate to be closer than clothes will allow. When they fall onto the bed, naked except for their underwear it still feels like an out of body experience to Nico, like his senses are heightened beyond anything he’s ever felt before. His skin is on fire at Lewis’ touch and it all feels so immediate. He gasps when Lewis rolls on top of him, grinding down on him as they kiss. Nico’s dick is so hard, aching to be touched, and part of him wants nothing more than just to mindlessly chase his orgasm until he comes in his pants and can go back to his own room to be alone with his guilt. He knows what that would do to Lewis. He can see from the look in his eyes.

Lewis climbs on top of him, running his hands over Nico’s chest before pausing to play along the waistband of his underwear without breaking eye contact once. There’s a question in his gaze and Nico wants the answer to be no, but it isn’t and he doesn’t have the strength to try and pretend he doesn’t want Lewis touching him. He nods, lifting his hips up from the bed so that Lewis can slide his boxers off, gasping as the air hits his dick, staring as Lewis shimmies out of his own underwear.

This feels so different from before, rushed and messy in the darkness of the car. Nico is exposed like this, in more ways than just his nakedness. It sends a panic stuttering through him, the way that Lewis’ eyes sweep over his body, laid bare for him; not drunk or in a hurry to be somewhere else. It feels like they have forever, even though they don’t, they can’t.

He stifles a moan when Lewis strokes a hand up the length of his dick, turning his head to the side and biting at his lips, looking over to where the first place trophy sits on the desk in the corner of the room. Lewis rubs his thumb across his slit and Nico keens for it, stomach muscles tightening as he tries to keep control, even though all he really wants is just to let it go. His mind wanders, as it so often has in recent months, to the blissful euphoria of Abu Dhabi, of crossing the line. He closes his eyes to relive it for a second - and Lewis’ hand withdraws.

“I need you with me, Nico,” he whispers, “look at me.”

Nico does. Although it’s not easy. He doesn’t quite understand how it’s Lewis who looks like the vulnerable one; when it’s him who’s lying here trapped beneath him with his dick leaking, completely at Lewis’ mercy. Yet it’s Lewis who looks unsure, scared. Nico reaches for him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and pulling him close, kissing him gently.

“I’m with you, I am,” Nico replies, rocking his hips up and making Lewis curse with the sensation, their dicks slick and wet, rubbing together in some assimilation of bliss.

Something catches Lewis’ eye and Nico follows his line of sight. There’s a small bottle of lube and a box of condoms on the bedside table. Nico swallows and shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not...” he says, “I don’t think I can.”

“Okay. It was just in case, that’s all.” Lewis murmurs, kissing along Nico’s jaw, “just wanna make you feel good.”

If there was a time for having a conversation about boundaries and what they’re even fucking doing here, now isn’t really an appropriate one. Nico briefly considers the prospect of being fucked by another man, by Lewis. The idea both terrifies him and turns him on more than he can handle, the thought of having Lewis inside him, or being inside Lewis. Their bodies joined together the same way that their lives have already been for so many years. Lewis has been inside his head for so long that why not his body too, he thinks.

It’s almost hysterical in its lunacy. He’s the fucking world champion and he’s falling apart at the thought of being fucked by the man he half destroyed to get there. Part of him tells him that Lewis must be loving this, that this was his plan to ruin Nico all along. But he knows it isn’t true.

“Make me come, then,” he says against Lewis’ lips, and his voice sounds ruined. He expects Lewis to reach down between them then, to jerk them both off until they’re a sticky, hateful mess. Instead, Lewis sits up, looking at him with pure want, and then he’s moving down the bed, spreading Nico’s thighs wide and settling between them, cupping his balls gently as he leans forward to lick up the length of his dick.

Nico arches his back involuntarily, pressing his forearm over his mouth to stifle the noises that he wishes he wasn’t making. Lewis works a hand up and down Nico’s cock, swirling his tongue around the head and making Nico whimper. He jerks Nico off, infuriatingly not quite at the pace he needs to come, lips suckling over the head obscenely, shiny with saliva and pre-come. Nico can feel it all coiling up inside him, so so close and yet not quite there when Lewis stops to adjust his position. He almost chokes when Nico, dissatisfied with the pace, tangles his fingers into Lewis’ hair and thrusts his hips up. His cock hits the back of Lewis’ throat and that’s enough to send him over the edge. Lewis gags around him, swallowing, letting Nico’s cock slip from his lips and licking him clean before kneeling over him, grasping his own dick and finishing himself frantically over Nico’s stomach.

Nico watches him, too dazed from his own orgasm to do anything other than stare. Lewis’ lips are still shiny red and sticky with the last traces of Nico’s semen, his pupils blown as he returns Nico’s gaze, swiping his tongue over his lower lip and gasping Nico’s name as he comes, thick ribbons coating Nico's pale skin.

“Will you stay”, Lewis asks, placing the cloth he’d grabbed to clean Nico off onto the bedside table. Nico stretches out sleepily, it feels as if his orgasm has cleared every thought from his mind and all he wants is to lie here. The idea is too tempting, staying here in Lewis’ bed.

“I shouldn’t but, yes,” he replies. They slip beneath the covers, lying facing each other but not touching. Nico can’t ignore how right this feels. It’s like it used to be, the times they shared a room as teenagers, talking and dreaming as best friends. Yet now there’s an added dimension to it.

Lewis’ hair is messy where from where Nico had grabbed at it, curly like it used to be years ago. His lips are red from their kisses – and Nico blushes at the memory of how they felt around his cock. He reaches out and brushes his thumb over Lewis’ bottom lip, their eyes locked.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Lewis murmurs.

“That it feels like we’ve come full circle, that maybe this was supposed to happen all along, but we just put barriers in the way. I don’t know, I don’t even know what this is. I know what it can’t be.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that now.” Lewis rests a hand at Nico’s neck, pulling him close for a chaste kiss.

When Nico wakes up hours later one of Lewis’ arms is draped across his chest, head on his shoulder. It feels good. It feels right. He doesn’t want to dwell on what this means. He closes his eyes again, nestling closer, but this time the thoughts keep him awake.

-

Nico has showered and dressed by the time Lewis wakes. He’s sitting on the sofa in the corner of the suite, looking out at the sunrise. It's rained again overnight and the city has that damp look to it, slowly drying out with the emergence of daylight.

“I miss racing you,” Lewis whispers, slipping on a robe and moving to sit at Nico's side. “You could come back, next season. If you wanted to. You'd get a seat.”

“We'd only use it to try and hurt each other. Don't look at me that way, you know it.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Nico.”

“Yes, you did,” Nico replies. “With us it was always a personal attack, we knew the things that would sting the most and we used them to try and beat each other. Just like we always said we’d never do.”

“And now the competition’s over.”

“Hmm.”

“And I'm lonely and you're depressed.”

“I’m not depressed, Lewis. That’s not what this is. I’m just…trying to figure things out. Maybe this is it, you know, us. I came to terms with us not being friends anymore, I dealt with it ages ago,” he says, glancing at Lewis. “But then we got close again and I…”

“It’s alright,” Lewis says. “You don’t need to try and explain it.”

“I need to figure out some things though. I’ve learned to live without racing, I need to learn to live without you as well.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

Nico looks around at him, suddenly angered. “I have a family, Lewis,” he says, voice slightly raised. “I can’t let this go further than it’s already gone, can’t you see that?”

“I know,” Lewis whispers softly, reaching out a hand to touch his thigh but withdrawing it before making contact. “I know that. Just…last night you said this was supposed to happen. And now what, you've talked yourself out of it? You’ve got it out of your system? You’re the one who’s fucking with me here, you made the first move, man. Remember that when you try and tell yourself this was all my fault.”

Lewis’ eyes almost look like they’re glistening for a moment. He stands and stalks into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind him.  

When he steps out of the en-suite ten minutes later, the room is empty, just as he'd thought it would be. He curls up on the stained sheets, burying his face in the pillow that Nico slept on.

Nothing is resolved. Nothing at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Part III - _I would like to go to the end_

“You can’t draw on the baby, Alaïa,” Vivian is saying, trying to prise a crayon out of her daughter’s hand and stop the baby from crying at the same time. “Nico!”

“Sorry, I’m here,” Nico lifts his eldest daughter into his arms, away from the side of the cot where his youngest daughter is showing off her lung capacity. “Let’s go see if we can find Bailey, yes.”

They wander through to the lounge in search of the Labrador, Alaïa grumpily declaring that her new baby sister is boring. She pets the dog while Nico retrieves one of her colouring books, dividing up the crayons and helping her to colour in between the lines. It’s an animal book and as they drag the crayons over the page, turning the dull lines into a bright purple butterfly, Nico’s mind wanders back to that day in the Jardin Exotique. _Sometimes I think the right person slipped away years ago._ Had Lewis been talking about him? He ruffles Alaïa’s hair, watching how intent she is at her colouring in and remembering how in the mind of a child time stretches on endlessly, the only things of any importance are those right in front of you.

***

“Naila’s finally asleep again,” Nico sinks down onto the couch later that night, raising his hand as Vivian hi-fives him. “And I _think_ that Alaïa didn’t wake up either. So we’re perfect.”

“See, you are good at this. I knew you would be,” Vivian rests her head against his shoulder, snuggling close to him. “You know you can talk to me about anything, that just because I can’t support you in racing anymore there are other ways I can be there.”

He takes her hand in his own, content at the warmth of her body against his own. It’s 1:30 in the morning and their daughters are both sleeping and he’s here, exhausted and close with Vivian. It’s what he’d dreamed of, this life, this family. What an absolute idiot he’d be to fuck this up.

“I know,” he lifts their joined hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “You’re amazing, I don’t tell you that enough I think.” He means it. Love of his life, mother of his girls. He’d known at seventeen, within weeks of meeting her for the first time since they were kids. Nothing would ever tear them away from their adoration of each other, no one would come between them. He sighs deeply and then tries to turn the exhalation into a yawn.

“You do tell me. And you’re my champion, you’ll always be that. But I think we need to talk about what you said in Milan.”

There hasn’t been much of a chance really, Naila’s arrival turning their lives upside down in the best way. Nico has barely thought of Lewis and has hoped in brief moments of clarity when cradling Naila in his arms that all else will just fade away, nothing matters more than family does.

“It was stupid,” he begins. Somewhere in the distance an ambulance siren cuts through the calm and Nico glances down at their joined hands, the diamond of Vivian’s engagement ring catching the low beams of light from the lamp and reflecting them around the room. The noise of the siren takes him back to _Princess Grace_ and the gleaming sterility of the maternity ward, Naila’s first breath of air.

“You have feelings for him.” It isn’t a question. He tries to figure out just what it is he wants to say, slipping out of her embrace and walking out to the balcony. The answers aren’t held within the darkness of the waves though; white-tipped in the moonlight they crash against the shore, breaking before building up anew again, a never-ending cycle. Vivian is at his side, the night breeze tousling her golden hair.

“I’m not gay.” He says it with the same conviction he’d said it to Lewis, standing in the exact same spot a few weeks earlier. Vivian laughs a little, touching his cheek. “I think I’d have noticed if you were, I think we know each other better than that, don’t you?”

“It’s…it’s just an attraction, Vivi” he tells her. “We’ve known each other so long and it’s just, weird. All that tension we had from being teammates or something. I need to get it out of my system, that’s all. And I will, you know. Nothing will happen again, I told him that in Monza.”

She gives him one of her looks that says he’s being ridiculous, the same one that Alaïa has already so sassily mastered. “Don’t lie, not to me and definitely not to yourself. You’re better than that. Work through it however you need to, but keeping it all in here,” her fingers press against the frown on his forehead “is not good for you. Go to another race, spend some time with him and then try and find your purpose again.”

She slips her arms around him, holding him tight until Naila begins to cry again.  

***

“You’re cheating,” Nico yells as Lewis sloppily rolls up two slices of pizza and shoves them both into his mouth at the same time, chewing rapidly. “You’re only meant to eat one slice at a time, those are the rules. Tell him, Kuba.”

The camera shakes a little, laughter of the boy holding it spilling over onto the tape. “Lewis is so winning,” muffled Polish-accented English behind the camera and the sulking face of fourteen year old Nico in front of it. Lewis presses pause on the DVD Player, wondering what the hell had possessed him to get these old tapes transferred onto disc. Looking at them hurts, still hurts after nearly twenty years. He can’t stop watching them, watching himself and Nico. It’s hard wanting someone all your life and never thinking they could feel the same until the moment when it’s much too late, when they have no chance.

He tucks his feet up onto the sofa, burrowing into his hoodie and reaching for the carton of melting ice cream on the table. Even the fucking ice cream reminds him of Nico which is honestly just juvenile and depressing but who cares. He’s just going to sit here until he absolutely has to get on the plane to Singapore and then maybe he’ll hit the hotel gym hard to work off all the crap he’s eaten since Monza. Or he could just stay here forever, phone in his retirement like Nico did and never have to think about any of it ever again.

It feels like when Nicole left the second time, only so much worse and really it’s a bad idea to have your broken heart sponsored by Ben and Jerry’s, especially as a professional athlete with very specific weight targets, but fuck it all. What hurts the most is that now he knows – after years of fantasising about how it would feel to kiss Nico and more years of trying to pretend he didn’t want to, now he knows how Nico’s lips feel against his own, how he kisses (lips soft but pressure rough at the same time, so willing and giving and desperate). He knows how Nico sounds when he comes, those breathy little moans that get shorter and lower the closer he gets to orgasm, how his skin tastes (sweet and salt and so addictive).

How it is to wake up beside him and then have him leave.

They can't carry on like this, Lewis knows. _I'm home till Tuesday,_ he texts. _If I don't hear from u before then we’re done._ Then he goes to check the freezer for more ice cream.

Less than an hour later Nico is at his door, arms hugged around himself, trying to look anywhere but at Lewis.

“I lied,” Lewis says when they sit down next to each other on the sofa, his hands clasped together and a pensive expression on his face as he glances between Nico and the window, the ocean choppy and unsettled. Nico’s stomach flips. Lied about what, he wonders.

“About,” he prompts.

Lewis exhales heavily. “It wasn’t over the winter,”

Nico’s mind scrambles through everything they’ve said over the last few months, picking each exchange apart.

“Do you remember Adria, years back?”

Nico thinks back through it all, some memories hazier than others now. He doesn’t recall anything that stood out about Adria, it was just an Italian karting circuit like so many others. They’d raced there sometime during the 2001 season, chasing each other on the way to the European Karting Championship.

“Carlo van Dam won the race,” Lewis says, a faraway look in his eyes. “You were second, I was third. I remember standing on the podium and your dad was there, both our dads actually. And I looked up at you and there was,” he pauses, trying to emphasise how damn important this is with a twist of his hands. “I was so happy we were both up there and I just couldn’t figure out what to do to show you how happy I was. I realised then that I wanted to kiss you. It was the worst moment of my life. I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t be like that and have all the other things I wanted. I couldn’t be like that and race. I talked myself out of it, told myself it was just adrenaline, just the magic of the podium. It’s not as if I didn’t fancy girls. I taught myself to forget about it. There was the occasional thing with a couple of guys but nothing...nothing with anyone who really meant anything to me.  I never imagined that seventeen years later you and me would…” he trails off.

Nico doesn’t say anything for a moment. He doesn’t remember that day specifically. There were other times though that were so important once; podiums and celebrations, nights spent lying awake under the stars talking about ‘when we get to Formula One’. He tried to bury a lot of those memories during 2015, when it began to hurt too much.

“I didn’t know,” he says finally. “You should’ve told me back then.”

“I didn’t want to fuck things up. Ignoring it was easier. I almost told you in Greece as well but...I couldn't risk it.”

“So all these years…”

“No. No, it wasn’t like that. I guess I just forgot about it as much as I could. You had Vivian, I had Nicole. I—”

“Was it because of me?” Nico interrupts. “You and her breaking up.”

“No,” Lewis says, firmly. He looks nervous though, Nico picks up on it. He can’t sit still. “Hey man, do you want a beer?”

“Erm, sure okay.”

Nico sits while Lewis leaves the room. There’s a chill in the air, late autumn Mediterranean nights just starting to turn cooler. He shivers and reaches for the throw that’s draped over the edge of the sofa, unfolding it so that it half covers his lap. Lewis mustn’t have switched his heating on yet. Probably not that much of a priority when you’re hardly ever home.

Lewis sits close to him, handing him a bottle of beer and pulling the throw a little so it covers him too. He takes a long swig of his beer, resting his head against Nico’s shoulder for a moment before he begins talking again.

“Nicole wanted us to be like you and Vivian,” he says, reaching over to flick the lamp on. “She always held the two of you up as some sort of benchmark, the perfect relationship.”

“We’re not perfect. I think recent events have proven that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, but you’re straightforward, when you’re not—when you weren’t racing, you wanted to be here with her in Monaco. You wanted to get married and have kids. I don’t think I could do that now. When I’ve retired, maybe, but I need to give every part of myself to racing. I don’t think I’d have the same edge, getting in the car and knowing that my kid could be growing up without a dad if my tyre blows and I’m in the wall.”

“It’s part of why I stopped when I did,” Nico answers. “I had no reason to go out and do it again, there are more important things now.”

Nico feels Lewis tense beside him. He glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Lewis leans away, placing his bottle down on the coffee table.

“Sometimes I miss you so much I can't stand it,” Lewis says. “I look at Valtteri and beating him, it almost means nothing. I started the year hating myself for this, for being fucking chained to you this way. Then I wanted to blame you, to take it out on you. That's why I was such a dick when I saw you at testing. But by Australia I just wanted you at my side, I wanted to look in my mirrors and see you. I fucked it all up didn't I?”

“Hey, look at me. We got our friendship back, didn't we? It's something.”

Lewis glances at him, he's closer to tears than Nico has seen him in a long time. “I keep thinking that if I'd told you how I felt years ago then we could've maybe avoided all this.”

“I don't think so,” he pauses. “I think we had to lose it all before we could find each other again. Listen, I’m sorry for Monza. The way things went in the morning I mean. I didn’t want things to end up that way. We didn’t talk properly and I shouldn’t have said what I said. It wasn’t good to leave it like that.”

Lewis wipes his eyes quickly, “Yeah, no shit.”

“I still don’t have any answers for you, Lewis. I don’t have a solution. Vivian and I, you and me, we can’t all be one happy unit. It doesn’t work that way. I have to put my children first.”

“I know that,” Lewis says. “I know.” He sits back, turning to face Nico, cupping his cheek gently. “I’m just happy to have you back in my life, whether it’s as friends or as more. I want you to know that.”

“I know,” Nico says, leaning in and kissing Lewis softly before tucking his head against the Brit’s shoulder.

“Why don't you come over tomorrow, meet Naila?”

“Um, yeah okay I guess I could.”

Lewis falls asleep against him. Nico sits there for a long while, listening to his gentle snores, looking out as the lights come on along Princess Grace Avenue, stars filling the sky. “I want it to be more, I do” he whispers. He means it. Denying his heart what it wants is costing too much, perhaps more than just jumping off that precipice and exploring this thing that’s between them would.   

Eventually he extricates himself from Lewis’ embrace, laying him gently down across the couch and covering him with the throw before closing the door softly behind him, taking the flight of stairs back down to his real life.


	12. Chapter 12

Lewis knows it's a mistake from the outset.

He watches as Nico cradles his newborn daughter in his arms, a shivery feeling blossoming through his body making the hairs on his arms stand up. It’s a pure pain, the kind that makes him have to bite down hard on his lip to stop himself from losing it. He shouldn’t have come over, he should have stayed away and let them enjoy the first days with their new baby alone, but he supposes there's always been something slightly masochistic about his relationship with Nico even since the very beginning.

“Come and have a hold.” The German beckons him over.  Lewis doesn’t want to hold Nico’s newborn daughter, can’t bear to have the living breathing proof of everything he can’t have thrust upon him like this. But he accepts the baby into his arms nonetheless, looking for traces of Nico in her tiny nose, ears, little sleepy yawns. For just a second he lets himself imagine – first steps and first days at school, being called daddy. Waking up next to Nico every day for the rest of his life. He releases a shaky breath.

“You okay?” Nico asks.

“Yeah, yeah man. I erm, I think I might be coming down with a cold so probably not a good idea for me to be around a newborn,” he hands Naila back to Nico. “I was thinking, why don't you come out to Singapore with me. Just for a couple of days.”

“I can't this weekend, I'm in London for a meeting.”

“Oh yeah, your secret meetings that you won't tell me about,” Lewis teases.

“Okay, it's with Alejandro Agag actually.”

Something plummets inside Lewis’ chest. “Formula E, huh?”

“No need to sound quite so unimpressed, Lewis.”

“Sorry, man. Just, you had the best car in the best Formula One team. The fact you're even considering Formula E seems crazy to me.”

“I don't want to race. And there's some great opportunities in Formula E, I think it'd be good for me. Why do you hate the idea so much?”

“Because I'm a racer, not a strategist. You could get a management role in Formula One so easily,” Lewis sighs.

“I'm not coming back Lewis,” he rocks Naila in his arms as she stirs, pressing a kiss to her hair.

 _No, of course you're fucking not_.

“I'm working with Robert as well, Lewis. It's not like I'll never be at another race but just not driving, I'm done with racing.”

Even though Lewis knew that really, aware of the strength of Nico's convictions, hearing it again still sucks.

“Just be careful with your driver signings - don't pick two drivers who hate each other.”

_Or who love each other, that's probably worse._

“I'll bear that in mind for the future,”

“Is it because of me?” Lewis presses. “Is that why you won't come back?”

“Let’s not go through this again, please. Formula E would suit me so much better now, there are some great opportunities and the schedule is less punishing. It would work. More time to spend at home too.”

It probably isn't intended to hurt, but Lewis feels it like a punch to the stomach. He knows of course, that Nico's family come first, that they always will. But it still kills him. In the past he'd always imagined that if they ever got to this point he'd take what he could get and cling to it. But he's never been the sort of person that can settle for anything less than what he truly wants and the sacrifice is impossibly painful.

“I want a family someday too, man.” Lewis says softly. He means it. He wants to go out to dinner with the person he's dating, kiss in public, maybe even have a kid one day. He worries at his lip, the thoughts bubbling to the surface. He wants those things with Nico and that's something he'll never have. They can only ever be this.

“You'll have a family, you'll be a great dad.”

“Yeah,” Lewis says, reaching for his keys from the table. “So uh, I need to head off, there's still a ton of things I need to do before Singapore. Tell Vivian I said bye.” He doesn’t exactly run for the door, but he gets out of there as quickly as he possibly can.

***

Singapore and Malaysia both pass by in a blur of pure focus for Lewis. He'll take Sebastian’s misfortune and run with it thank you very much. The friendly rivalry they'd cultivated at the start of the season has faded away, left behind somewhere - probably Baku - as the fight intensifies. In a way he misses it, but Valtteri is proving to be a better teammate than Lewis could ever have anticipated; the Finn is nice, decent enough company and not a threat to Lewis’ title challenge. When they talk to each other in every post-race debrief it is with respect and camaraderie, he doesn’t look at Valtteri and think of being thirteen and confused. There’s a neutrality to having a teammate you’ve never had romantic feelings for, Lewis had almost forgotten what that felt like. Sometimes he wants to ask the Finn for advice, to just let it all spill out of his mind before it drives him crazy. One time he calls Dino just to listen to his old karting boss ramble about stories that he’s half forgotten now, alone in another hotel room in another city, sun going down on the racetrack and his heart heavy with nostalgia.

_Tell me again about that time in Naples._

“You knew, didn’t you,” Lewis’ words a fine thread on the verge of breaking. Yes, Dino knew. Yes, Dino had seen him crying, crouching down in the dirt smoking a cigarette after their last race as teammates. Sixteen and crying like a child. Lewis had blocked that memory out. He welcomes it back just as he despises it all the same.

-

Lewis is playing golf in Hong Kong when Nico texts to say that he's coming to Japan. He isn't sure what to make of it really and the idea of it unsettles him. He's not sure he knows how to be near Nico in the paddock anymore. Alone it's different, alone it doesn't matter if his hands wander - Nico doesn't stop him anymore, more often than not it's Nico who initiates the contact. Yet Lewis has seen him shut down before, the German is good at erecting barriers and Lewis doesn't have the energy to try and break them down, not with a mic in his face and the eyes of the world watching them, willing something explosive to happen. If they only knew. Which they never can, Lewis thinks grimly as he misses his shot.

“Just for one night,” the text had said. Lewis’ mind needs to be on the race and nothing but the race. But it's Nico.

***

Suzuka is familiar and different all at once, Nico decides as he checks into the hotel; the same one he always stays in but this time here as a pundit rather than ready to drive. He's jet-lagged but it's not the same emotional tiredness he's felt for much of the year, it's different, better. There's a certain freedom that comes with the admittance that you want something, taking ownership of the feeling rather than trying to bury it. He loves Vivian and he’s attracted to Lewis. They are two things that can possibly exist simultaneously - that's what he's trying to assure himself of anyway. Vivian’s permission is freeing, it gives him a fragile hope that things will work out, that he can go with it and have the best of both worlds without it being an issue. He'd felt it since the moment that Lewis met Naila, seeing him cradle her in his arms doing something to Nico deep inside. They can have this. He can devote himself to family life and have this occasionally too and it'll all be perfect.

“Do you remember the first time we went skiing?” Nico asks that night after qualifying, lying back on the bed and yawning contentedly, the sushi platter they'd ordered from room service set aside, having been almost entirely demolished.

“Yeah, course.”

“My dad expected you to be on the nursery slopes the whole time and - what was it, a day and a half before you were on the main slopes with me.”

“I'm good at skiing. Better at snowboarding but still. Your dad thought I'd be shit at skiing, wow.”

“He didn't know you quite as well as I did. I knew that you could do anything you put effort into. If you wanted it enough you'd make it happen.”

Lewis moves the tray with the remains of their food in over onto the table, lying down at Nico's side.

Lewis senses there's something Nico's hinting at here that he isn't getting.

“Just good in the snow, man. I am from England, kinda used to the cold.”

“You were very determined. Always fighting for what you wanted.” Nico lets go of his hand, rolling onto his side facing Lewis, who mirrors his movements, resting his hand on Nico's cheek. “Why didn't you fight for me, back then?”

Ah. He looks so young sometimes, Lewis thinks. He isn't really sure how to answer, whether to tell Nico that this is one of the things that haunts him.

“Some really bad odds on that one. You gave me no indication you felt the same - I mean you didn't at the time. Did you?”

“No. No, but…”

“So what could I do, come out to you and risk fucking up our friendship? It would've changed things, whether you were cool with it or not.”

“I don't know how I'd have reacted, honestly,” Nico admits, reaching out and stroking his fingers through Lewis’ curls. He's spent so long trying to deny he needs this and for one night he just wants to embrace it, just him and Lewis. The scent of Lewis’ aftershave is so familiar, laden with memories of being in his arms, so close, all the other times, and Nico is nicely relaxed from the saké he had with dinner. This is one of those moments, he realises, one of those moments that will stick in his memory for the rest of his life. He leans closer, closing his eyes and kissing Lewis softly. “I wish we'd tried.”

“So do I,” Not wanting to spoil the moment, Lewis doesn't vocalise what he's thinking, which is that now it's much too late for them to last. Lewis senses there’s more though. They end up tangled together on the duvet, Nico's head resting on Lewis’ chest, heartbeat a steady drum in his ear. It reminds Lewis of all the times he held Nicole like this, fingers stroking through her hair. Sometimes she'd look up at him with a hand on her stomach and he'd know that she was thinking about babies, about the future. That's the thing about living one race at a time - the future never catches you. He'd never been able to tell her that for him everything was always temporary.

Nico glances round at him now, that questioning look in his eyes again.

“Have you fucked many guys?” Nico asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

“ _Really_?”

“You don't have to tell me, I was just…I thought I knew you so well, you know. And then I find out there's this whole part of your life you never told me about.”

Lewis looks into his eyes, trying to read him.

“A few. Mainly just fooling around. Not that easy knowing when to trust people. I guess you need someone with as much to lose as you.”

Nico's mouth goes dry. He hasn't even thought of it till now, but of course.

“Anyone in the paddock, the team?” he asks lightly. Has Lewis been fucking Toto this whole time? One of his mechanics?

“Man, you're jealous aren't you? No, no one from our world. I think I did try and snog Jenson once when I was drunk years ago. But he never mentioned it to me after so uh no.”

Nico doesn't really know how to respond to that. “I'm not jealous. He sits up, pretending to suddenly be very interested in his phone.

Lewis reaches for him, stilling the movement. “Do you want to fuck me?”

“I…” Does he? “Do _you_ want me to?”

“Yes,” Lewis says even though this is a bad idea, “yeah.”

***

It’s definitely a bad idea, Lewis knows this even as he’s slicking his fingers up with lube and pushing them into himself, trying to focus purely on the sensation rather than the expression of awe and arousal on Nico’s face as he watches from the end of the bed, stroking Lewis’ ankle distractingly. The nerves are making Lewis tremble, fear coursing through him that he isn’t sure how to brush away. He both wants this and doesn’t, it’s another piece of himself to give away to Nico but teenage fantasies aren’t supposed to ever come true and what will Nico do with this, fuck him and then leave him like he did in Abu Dhabi last year, taking away Lewis’ championship and then fucking off like none of it really meant anything in the first place?

“I won’t break,” Lewis swats away his hand, gone from being gentle on his leg to teasingly soft around his dick. Nico clears his throat, looking away from him and over at the painting of Tokyo that’s hung on the wall above the bed, rain drenched neon sharp and futuristic. Lewis knows what he’s thinking, that he’s scared of this - not so much the fucking but the intimacy it affords.

At the end of the day it’s just a fuck, but it’s him and Nico and things are never _just_ anything between them. He thinks about turning over, getting on his hands and knees and burying his face in the pillow so he doesn’t have to watch Nico’s face as he pushes inside him, doesn’t have the image of Nico falling apart going over in his head for the rest of his life; yet already he needs to see that, needs to know if his lips part in pleasure the same way when he’s fucking someone as when he’s getting his own dick sucked. So he remains on his back, pulling an uncertain Nico to him and kissing him, licking into his mouth as Nico’s body covers his own. Their cocks slide together, sticky-wet with precome and Lewis almost wants to just rut against him like this until they come, the urgency reminiscent of the very first time they touched each other. Instead he shifts further up the bed, pulling Nico with him, kissing him again. Nico reaches between them, stroking Lewis’ cock firmly before drawing back to roll a condom down his own erection, spreading Lewis open and running just the tips of his fingers over his hole, making him shiver.

“You'll tell me if I hurt you, won't you?” Nico is saying, biting his lip in concentration as the head of his cock presses against Lewis’ arsehole.

“Yes, just. Fuck...please…” Lewis snaps in frustration before he can stop himself. “Oh god, Nico, please.”

He doesn’t need to ask again, even though if Nico himself wasn’t so far gone Lewis can imagine him drawing it out, teasing him until they both can’t stand it.

Lewis squeezes his eyes shut, gasping at the sensation as Nico fills him in one swift push. It’s too much, overwhelming in more than just a physical sense and he feels as if he’s losing his virginity all over again because there’s fucking someone in the toilets of a nightclub for release and then there’s making love with the boy he fell for when he was barely a teenager. He feels so big, Nico, so hot inside him, too much and not enough. “Lewis?”

“It’s okay, you’re not hurting me.” Not physically. “Just…fuck, just move.” He opens his eyes, looking up at Nico and wrapping his legs tighter around his waist. Nico looks wrecked already, his face flushed and drawn with concentration as he tries not to lose it so soon. Lewis rocks his hips up just to watch the sensations play across Nico’s face, to see him fight hard against the urge to come so quickly. Nico takes a deep breath, holding it and exhaling slowly, stroking steady patterns on Lewis’ hip as he tries to calm himself. Already Lewis knows that the moment this is over he’s going to miss it, knows that however many men he might sleep with in the future nothing will ever match being this close to Nico.

They find their rhythm, Lewis moving his hips up in time with Nico’s thrusts, now smooth and deep and hitting him just right. He wants to touch Nico everywhere, wants to get lost in him and never resurface. It’s not a pleasant thought, that one. He clutches at the German’s back, his skin slick with sweat, slides his hands up into his hair as they breathe against each other’s mouths. _So beautiful,_ Lewis thinks as Nico draws back and grabs him by the hips, movements stilling as he spills into the condom. When he comes, Lewis throws his arm over his eyes, trying to hide the fact he’s on the verge of tears.

After, Nico lies in his arms, the covers drawn up around them both, sweat cooling on their skin. Lewis strokes his fingers through Nico’s hair soothingly as he tries to order his thoughts. He should be focussing on his start, on the run up to turn one. He shouldn’t be feeling things he can’t vocalise.

“So was it everything you used to dream of?” Nico says lightly. If it's supposed to be a joke it falls flat. Lewis’ hand stills immediately.

“Shit, I didn't mean that how it sounded.”

“No, no it’s…I don’t know man, sex is sex, right. It was great, obviously. It’s getting late, I should brush my teeth.” He slips out of bed, closing the bathroom door behind himself and leaning heavily against it, staring at his reflection in the mirror; the working class kid from Stevenage turned three time F1 champion. Confidence is never something he’s been in short supply of and he shouldn’t have to hide his sexuality from the world, shouldn't have to pretend that he's cool with being some kind of casual fun because Nico doesn't want to admit to himself that it's more. He turns off the tap with a sigh.

Nico is sitting up in bed, worry written into the creases of his forehead, when Lewis walks back into the bedroom.

“Are you okay?” he starts to ask. “I didn't mean--”

“I love you,” Lewis cuts him off. “I always have done and I don't want to pretend that this is anything less than that.”


	13. Chapter 13

_I love you_.

Nico ploughs forward, muscles stretching pleasingly as he glides through the water. Forty laps. Forty one laps. He hadn’t said it back, time seeming to freeze between them in the Suzuka hotel room. How could he possibly say it back? It’s how it is with Lewis now – Nico feels like he’s getting comfortable with the situation and then it all tips on its axis again. He turns his head to the side to breathe, Vivian’s already post-baby slim figure casting a shadow across the surface of the pool.

The sun is out, a beautiful unseasonably warm October morning in Monaco. He pauses when he reaches the shallow end, waving as he catches his breath. “I want to swim, papa,” Alaïa says, crossing her arms in indignation.

“Let papa finish his swim first and then you can play,” Vivian tells her.

“It’s okay.” He smiles and reaches his arms out to take her, dunking her legs in the water. She already has on her swimming costume and water-wings. He hoists her onto his shoulders. “Coming in?” he asks Vivian.

“Later, maybe. I need to take Naila for her jabs, remember. You okay with Alaïa for a while?”

“Yep, we’re okay, aren’t we mousie?”

“Yes!” Alaïa replies enthusiastically.

They’re okay, or they will be. He’s trying not to think about how in just a few days he’ll no longer be the reigning world champion – barring something catastrophic happening to the team in Mexico.

_I love you._

Nico can’t entertain the thought of being in love with Lewis, that doesn’t fit in anywhere with the plan he had for his life. When he’d spoken to Vivian they’d had a very frank and open discussion about friendship and sex and exploration, but she has limits, he knows, even if she hasn’t said so. As long as he can pretend it’s just fun then it’ll be fine. He wonders who he’s trying to convince – Vivi or himself.

They’d spent the flight back to Heathrow wrapped up in each other as the miles had disappeared, fucking in the bathroom up against the tiny sink desperately trying to keep quiet, trying to draw out their time together.

Nico looks up at the sun, black spots across his vision and the echo of his own name said in such desperate passion. He says it back in his mind, an imaginary version of himself and of Lewis. He pictures himself, fourteen and full of dreams, whispering the words on a beach back in Greece seventeen years ago to the Lewis who had once been his best friend. None of this is his fault. It’s Lewis’ fault. If Lewis had said it back then they’d have avoided all this, got it out of the way before they grew up and it was too late. Vivian is okay with friends with benefits, with him figuring himself out. She wouldn’t be okay with him falling completely in love with someone else. Alaïa cuddles tightly to him, kicking her legs in the water, and this is it, he reminds himself. The more you give the more you have to lose.

***

Mexico is as fun as it always is, vibrant and alive as the Day of the Dead approaches. Lewis tries his best to get through all his sponsor obligations without thinking too much about the title, Nico’s _one race at a time_ motto entering his mind as he climbs into bed on the Saturday night. It might even work if he didn’t already know that that was complete bullshit. What if he’d pushed just a bit harder throughout the last season, or if he’d tried to back Nico into the pack in Abu Dhabi even more than he had. Maybe he could’ve done it all differently, the whole lot.

The room is dark and cool and silent, perfect conditions for sleeping, but it’s impossible to switch off. He tries to picture Nico’s face and how it would look if he’d lost, the pain and exhaustion, tears and disappointment at having given it his absolute all and failed again, imagines himself comforting the German afterwards like good teammates do, like he knows he’d do for Valtteri or that Seb would do for Kimi. He’d hold Nico close and kiss away the agony of the loss, re-awaken the connection between them and then this year it would’ve all been different. They’d have been teammates and lovers just like they should have been all along – and Nico wouldn’t have retired, Lewis wouldn’t feel so alone. He'll go out there and take his Championship back though, whether tomorrow or in a couple of weeks time, that's the one thing he's certain of even if all else is fucked.

\-  

True to his promise, Lewis does take the title the next day, not in the fashion that he wanted but what does it matter at the end of the day. He's still in his racing overalls when Nico texts, the dig at him entirely anticipated. It's why Lewis had opened his mouth in the press conference if he's honest - to bait and rile him as clear as if he was sitting there in the same room - because if you can't say something nice then a little barbed jibe is better than nothing. Lewis can't say something nice.

 _Was that really necessary?_ _I_ _retreated_ ** _._** _Really Lewis._

Lewis reads it a couple of times, smiling at the reaction before he exits out of the text and takes another gulp from the bottle of champagne.

It doesn’t feel real yet. In a way he’d expected the moment to be less special, less awe inducing and wild in the achievement. He knows what winning championships is, knows the glory and disbelief and sheer pride. But still again it’s as if it’s the first time all over and he has to pinch himself because he can’t believe it’s true.

The previous text from Nico had contained a congratulations, but this one…fuck it, if Nico’s pissed off then that’s his problem and honestly he hadn’t intended to even mention him in the presser. The words had just tumbled from his mouth like something he had to spit away, more bitter than the taste of Nico’s semen, which he could swallow forever just in an attempt to soak up more of him, to bind them together. He rubs a hand over his face and lets all the emotions wash over him. The music coming from out front the garage is loud, the atmosphere jubilant in spite of the strangeness of the race, winning a championship in 9th.

He needs to go out there and celebrate, enjoy it all with the team and he’s…he will. It’s the first title he’s won where he doesn’t have Nicole at his side and he misses her a little. Well, not so specifically her; he misses having someone to kiss, that face in the crowd to run to. He has his friends, he has Hiero – but Hiero isn’t his son no matter how much Lewis would like to pretend, and it isn’t the same.

 _You didn’t say it back,_ Lewis types, because why pretend this is about Championships when really it's so much more. _That’s the easy thing isn’t it, not saying it._ _That’s what I meant._

_I can’t say that to you Lewis._

Not _I don’t._ But what does it matter anyway. Lewis needs to get out of the private room, join his team and celebrate.

 _You’re a fucking coward and you know it_ he sends back, slamming his phone down on the table. Why does it even matter whether Nico loves him or not. How the hell has he let them get into this situation.  He thinks that he might tell his mum.

***

The days slope onwards, last vestiges of autumn giving way to winter, mild on the Cote D’Azur as it always is. Lewis stays in America throughout the last few races of the season, busy celebrating his fourth title with family and friends. Nico misses him. Small things; the coarse tangle of curls beneath his fingers as they kiss, the place behind his ear where the 44 is inked that makes Lewis shudder when licked over. Part of being unable to say it back is that the words can’t contain the violence of Nico’s feelings. He wants to make love to Lewis constantly, craves his touch and the sound of his voice, feels so deeply the knowledge that there is a Lewis that exists purely for him and not for the rest of the world.

Once he’d thought that no one would know him the way that Lewis did, but that’s back when he didn’t really even know himself all that well and Vivian blew that out of the water anyway. She knows him to his bones, could read every line on his heart as though he were a novel to be learned. Yet…racing to her is just something he does. Did. She never quite understood the passion, the hunger that rushed through his veins. Lewis knows. Lewis loves him and Nico feels as though he’s been turned inside out and dismantled piece by piece. Maybe playing games was the only way they knew how to communicate with each other towards the end of their tenure as teammates but it was as tiresome then as it is now and Nico's lost the appetite for it. They have to stop this for good or he's going to lose his mind. It was foolish to think that he could have it all but fuck, he thinks he might die if they stop.

“Shall we come with you to the airport?”

Nico looks up from where he’s standing on the balcony, looking out over the ocean while Naila sleeps on his arms, oblivious to the muddle of her father’s thoughts. Vivian moves to stand behind him, leaning up on tiptoe for a moment to kiss the side of his neck. Naila stirs in his arms and he passes her over.

“I’d like that.” His chest feels tight, as if he’s being slowly crushed from within. It makes him wonder - would it be the same if he’d drunk too much one night and gone home with some Monte-Carlo socialite or hanger-on after a race. Would a meaningless fuck make him any better or worse than he is now? In some ways he longs for Vivian’s anger. If she’d sat and cried, displaying her sadness and disappointment in him, would he still have pursued Lewis with such vehemence? Is the blame in her permission or his own weakness? There’s always one weak spot, with every driver on every starting grid history over. Nico’s weakness was always Lewis, written in the stars and under the skin; the same is true in reverse, as if Lewis had tattooed over so many inches of his flesh in order that the ink might fill in all those dark spaces in his soul and make him into somebody else.

Yet to blame Vivian would be stupid, cruel. Part of him wishes she was flying out to Abu Dhabi with him, that in doing so they could recreate the joy of this time last year. Another side of him can think of nothing other than Lewis. He’d hated Lewis at times when they were teammates, hated him with such passion, but even then it was inconceivable that there would ever be a time when they’d be apart.

“I'll just change Naila and then we're good to go,” Vivian tells him, pressing her lips to his cheek.

***

Even with the space of the few weeks since he won the title allowing the reality of his achievements to sink in, the emotion of being four time world champion hits Lewis anew as the fireworks fill the sky in Abu Dhabi. He almost wishes Nico hadn’t come here, back to the scene of so many emotional moments between the two of them; even back in 2014 he’d been kidding himself that he hadn’t wanted to kiss Nico in the brief moment they shared before the podium. Things hadn’t been so bad between them then, hadn’t been irreparable. Now it’s all fucked. Now he’s in love and despite Nico being such a dick about it he knows that Nico is too. Lewis stands on the podium and it doesn’t matter that it isn’t the top step, he’s still the world champion - he’s won that back from Nico even if he’s lost a part of himself in exchange. The crowd are cheering, the new logo is being revealed behind the drivers, but it all fades into the background because Nico is standing below the podium looking up at him with a mixture of pride and nostalgia in his eyes. Never has Lewis wished more that Nico was up there with him. It hits him freshly even after a year - it’s gone - the dream they had as kids has been realised, and in doing so it no longer exists - he’ll go on without Nico.

It’s only after the champagne and hugs with his team that Lewis finds himself with Nico in the garage, the two of them alone finally. Nico kissing him for the first time in Ibiza seems so long ago, back when they were friends. They’ve been lovers, rivals, everything under the sun and constantly in orbit of each other. Now what are they, what is this? Lewis wants to ask the impossible. Leave Vivian and I’ll quit racing for you, I’ll tell the world it’s you I want and fuck them if they don’t understand. He’ll never say those words, it would just be torturing himself to hear Nico tell him no. It’s his turn to walk away now, after Nico turned his back on racing.

In the end it’s always a competition.

Lewis gives up on fighting back the tears, one blink and they’re cascading down his cheeks, a river of emotion that he doesn’t know how to voice. He isn’t ashamed of them – he wants Nico to see the proof. He’s been cut up so many times and yet the only wounds ever visible were all those years ago when he crashed his kart – and then Nico had been the one to patch him up.

He shakes a little, body jolting as another burst of fireworks fills the sky. Nico holds him, presses him back against the wall and looks him right in the eyes. Lewis stares back. Blurred and beautiful and not his.

Nico mouths soft words of comfort against Lewis’ neck, cradling his head as if he’s holding his newborn daughter and not his fiercest enemy.

When his tongue darts out to catch the tears from Lewis’ cheeks it’s as if something snaps between them, both surging forward into a desperate kiss.

“I don’t think we can keep doing this,” Lewis wipes his eyes, breathing heavily as they draw away from each other. He glances away from Nico, out at the track bathed in light and colour. Anyone could walk past and see them like this and with the exhaustion of the end of another season where Nico is still fucking with his head even having retired, Lewis wishes they just would. He wants to fuck Nico on the track, to watch him fall apart and mark him with his mouth, fingernails dragging along his pale skin as if he can sink under there and stay there forever. He fucking hates Nico. He loves Nico. He…god he’s so afraid.

“We can’t just-- tell me how we can make this work, Lewis?”

Lewis thinks about making some bullshit up, some arrangement. _I’ll see you every other Tuesday and you enjoy being a dedicated family man the rest of the time, yeah._ It’s so unfair, he wants everything. He needs Nico in his life but nothing he can think of is enough. He leans forward, resting his forehead against Nico’s.

“I need to go have some drinks with people and then I have a flight to catch, yeah. You should probably go.”

Nico brings his hands up to cup Lewis’ face again, stepping back and looking him in the eyes, that slightly panicked, haunted look in his eyes that Lewis knows so well from all the losses he's inflicted on him. “Not yet. Let me have this for a bit longer.”

Lewis feels sick. “I don’t owe you anything, man.”

“Maybe not, but give me a little more time. Come to Hong Kong with me? Just us, away from everything.”

Lewis wants to tell him to fuck off, but when it comes down to it he can’t.   


	14. Chapter 14

When he looks back with the space of a dozen years and a continent apart, Nico would probably say that Hong Kong was the pinnacle of his relationship with Lewis, a few short days where what they knew would soon die was still rich with the last desperate bursts of life.

They stay at the Peninsula in a suite so high that the mist hangs in front of the windows, an opaque curtain that blurs the view of the bay. Even with the main purpose of Nico’s visit being to watch the Formula E he barely talks of racing with Lewis at all, as if they’ve transcended it now that the F1 season is over. Instead they explore both each other and the city, hours spent inside each other wrapped in sheets damp with sweat, evenings walking around Victoria Harbour and later hand in hand along the tranquil pathways of Kowloon Park.

They kiss in alleyways beneath shopfronts dense with Cantonese lettering that Nico cannot read, their passion swift and intense as if it’s a necessity to steal every possible kiss and store it for a time when there’ll be no more, locked in a bank of memories.

“You taste eighty percent dim sum, twenty percent Lewis Hamilton right now, you realise,” Nico pulls a face but still leans in and presses their lips together again. Nico wonders (and it occurs to him that Lewis probably does too) if this is who they would’ve been before, if this had happened when they were teenagers or in another life entirely, another universe without Formula One. He thinks of Vivi and his girls often, misses them as he always does, but he can’t bring himself to feel guilty anymore for the emotions that Lewis has awakened in him; it’s as though with the renewal of this self-awareness he has found his feet again and the future isn’t quite as fear-inducing. In some respects anyway.

They talk a lot about when they were kids, lying awake jetlagged as the dawn breaks, pale blue light washing over the harbour, as if the remembrance will bring those days back to life and they’ll become the lovers they should’ve been back then. Nico’s self-consciousness about his lack of experience fades quickly in their pursuit to become lovers who know each other inside out. Three days doesn’t seem like much though out of a lifetime, not much at all.

Nico sits on the edge of the bed, reading a text from Vivian and checking what’s going on in the world while Lewis showers.

“You wanna go out for breakfast or order something up?” Lewis asks when he steps back into the bedroom. There’s water dripping down his chest still, trickling slowly along the defined ridges of his abs, which is really damn distracting. Nico licks his lips unconsciously at the sight. He wants to order room service, to fuck Lewis up against the window and then eat breakfast with him as if they’re on honeymoon or something, but the room stinks of sweat and sex and he could do with some air, actually quite likes the idea of finding somewhere off the beaten track where he can walk hand in hand with Lewis and they can be inconspicuous, touch each other innocuously as if any of this was real.

It still surprises Nico, the arousal that springs to life in him at the sight of Lewis’ body, he's given up trying to make sense of the attraction - even if thinking of it in those terms is still easier. They haven't talked about it being any deeper than that since Lewis’ confession in Japan, the last pretence between them that has yet to fall away. He doesn't want to bring that up now, sure that it would end with doors slammed and one of them wandering around the city alone. Time is too short for that.

“We should go out. Although…” Nico steps close to Lewis, their stomachs brushing as he leans in close and sniffs at his neck, “you still stink. I think you need to shower again, for sure.”

Lewis frowns for a second before the penny drops. “You think that do you?” He loosens the towel that's around his hips, letting it drop to the floor and pressing his half-hard cock against Nico's. They've never done it in the shower and why not now, Nico decides, taking Lewis by the hand and guiding him back into the bathroom. Why not now rather than never.

-

“Scared?” Nico asks, trying not to smile as Lewis backs away a little from the centre of the cable car, sitting down on the small bench opposite him.

“No way, man. Fuck it is quite high though.”

Nico looks down at the glass floor and through it, the thick foliage of Lantau Country Park, a few figures visible on the path winding through it. He reaches for Lewis’ hand, threading their fingers together and giving his hand a little squeeze before moving to sit next to him. The gondola lurches a bit with the change in weight distribution, Lewis gripping onto Nico tighter. It’s a half hour journey, the cars spread out enough that the nearest one is not that close to them.

Lewis rests his head against Nico’s shoulder, enjoying the closeness for a moment before turning to him, cupping his face. “Can I kiss you?”

Nico looks around quickly and then back at Lewis with a small nod. “If you’re quick.”

Their mouths meet, soft and tender, a kiss for lovers old and familiar. Nico feels light, suspended so far off the ground so precariously, the two of them in their own perfect bubble in the sky.

“I meant it, just so you know,” Lewis buries his face against Nico’s neck. “What I said in Suzuka. I meant it.”

Nico shifts uncomfortably. He wonders if he really has to say it back for Lewis to know.

“Hey, look, almost there.” Nico says, twisting to look behind them both as the giant Tian Tan Buddha draws closer at the top of the hill.

There’s a sense of peace in the air when they finally step out at the end of the line, even with the amount of sightseers around. Reluctantly Nico lets go of Lewis’ hand, the worry of someone recognising them in such a touristy area playing on his mind, but still they remain close, challenging each other as to who can reach the top of the three-hundred odd steps that lead up to the statue first.

They take selfies, the deep tree-lined valley behind them and in the distance the skyscraper filled metropolis of Kowloon. After, they make their way down to the monastery, taking their time through the winding colourful gardens.

“Do you remember what you said to me in Spain last year?” Nico asks when they stop to sit, looking straight ahead and not at Lewis. A group of monks walks past them slowly, heads bowed, prompting Nico to remember the days when he could summon such focus, his mind clear of everything except the next race, at one with the car as all else melted away.

“I was so angry with you Nico, so so fucking pissed.”

“You said you wished you'd never met me, that I was poison to the team, to you. That I was ruining your life.”

“We've both said a lot of things in the heat of the moment.”

“Do you think it would be better,” Nico asks, “if you'd never come to karting in Europe, if you'd gone somewhere else, a different route into F1 maybe?”

“No. I think I'd have been lonely and I wouldn't have had even close to as much fun as I did with you when we were kids. I wouldn't change this.”

“Even knowing how it'll be, after?”

“Yeah, even with that.” Lewis’ hand finds Nico's again. “I want you to come back,” he says. “It could be different this time, now _we_ 're different.”

“You know that I won't, I can't. Please stop asking me that.”

“I thought it was worth one more try,” Lewis shrugs.

“You never give up, do you,” Nico shakes his head, amused.

“Nope. You're the only person who's ever really pushed me to the limit.”

“Beyond the limit for me, I think.”

“Yeah well, it's a talent I have.” They sit for a while, watching as the sun begins to go down, the line of tourists up to the Buddha thinning out. Incense hangs heavy in the air, wafting out from within the monastery. Up here, racing feels like a different world, so far apart from who Nico is now. He can't even conjure up the feeling in his bones, the thrill, the adrenaline, the rush of winning - they all seem so far removed from who he is now. The memories enter his mind with fondness, but nothing more.

“We should head back,” Lewis suggests eventually. “You need to get ready for that Boss event and I know how long it takes you to do your hair.”

Nico swats his arm playfully but doesn't dispute it. “What will you do, while I'm networking?”

“I don't know, order up some food, cuddle your pillow and jerk off all night or something. What?”

“I'm sure you can cope without me for a few hours without doing that,” Nico rolls his eyes, standing to leave and offering his hand to Lewis.

“I'll come and find you after if you want, take that suit off you.”

“It's a date then.” That's how it feels too, like being here is one extended date away from reality.

***

“Hey, want to get your fortune told?”  Nico nods towards the stall as they walk past, the night market bustling and fragrant. He's taken off his tie, the first few buttons of his shirt undone and his suit jacket folded over his arm. Even with the late hour it's still humid and the champagne he'd drunk at the launch event has gone to his head a little. He almost wishes he'd ditched it though, spent the last night here entirely with Lewis, but it would look a little poor if their new global ambassador didn't even bother to show up. It had been a good night, even as his mind did keep wandering back to Lewis. He'd chatted to a lot of familiar faces, spent some time discussing power units with Alejandro, it felt like a positive night.

“Nah I don't think so,” Lewis says, pulling Nico's attention back.

The proprietor of the palm reading stall, a woman of indeterminate age dressed in a flowing, elaborately embroidered cloak, reaches out to them as they pass, Lewis shaking his head in dismissal. “The future’s always more fun when it’s a surprise. Hey Nico, look.”

There’s a stall full of pirate DVDs, all laid out in no particular order, but on one of them Nico sees his own face displayed on the cover alongside Lewis’. Lewis picks it up, to the delight of the storeholder who immediately starts the hard sell. _Lewis & Nico - The Untold Story _is written across the cover, the rest of it in Cantonese.

“Come on, before someone recognises that's us,” Nico tugs at his arm, drawing him away.

“How much detail do you reckon they've got in there?” Lewis asks him.

“I hope not enough!”

They wander further down Temple Street, the traders starting to pack up as midnight approaches all too soon. Nico thinks ahead to tomorrow, to the Formula E followed by the flight home, their time together slipping away like quicksand. He tries to stay awake as long as he can when they finally climb into bed, tries to hold onto the feeling of Lewis in his arms.

***

Lewis has no interest in the racing really, in his eyes it’s a poor imitation of the sport he loves so much and the idea that Nico would choose to be involved in it rather than in F1 feels like a more personal betrayal than the rational side of his brain tells him it is. Yet still he goes along to the ePrix the next day, hanging back and watching as Nico works the hospitality crowd in the way that only he can. The pride that Lewis feels in him is misplaced - Nico isn’t his to feel proud of, isn’t his to love and hate - seeing him there though Lewis can imagine him in the future, a permanent fixture here in charge of his own team. He fiddles with his phone, watching from a corner as Nico speaks to the press in the paddock, talking with such enthusiasm. Lewis would probably say that this was the point in time where he actually truly lost Nico to the future, to his new life, but honestly he never had him, not properly. Who will Nico be, he wonders, in the future. Will there be anything to connect them still in ten...fifteen years time at all or will they become strangers again, Nico showing his daughters pictures of the two of them when they were young, explaining what they meant to each other, how they shared their dreams.

Lewis doesn't want to be here, to be part of this. He pulls his cap down lower in front of his face, lest anyone pick him out and approach him for an interview. If they talk then let them, he’s giving nothing away. The idea comes to him that maybe he'll wipe his social media clean at the end of the year, like cleansing his soul in preparation for a new beginning, a new start. A clean break once and for all. His phone rings, distracting him from watching Nico, he blushes a little as he notices the slight shadow of a mark on his neck, memories of Nico beneath him just hours earlier. It seems embarrassing almost, the realisation that the only man he's ever truly made love with has been Nico - the rest just a means to an end, an outlet for a part of himself he's never quite been comfortable with acknowledging.

“Hey how's it going, everything cool?” Lewis says in reply to Toto's confused greeting.

“You're in Hong Kong?”

“Um, yeah I am.”

“With Nico?”

Lewis watches as Nico embraces Lucas di Grassi, trying to ignore the jealousy that boils hard and unforgiving in the pit of his stomach. Is he going to fall into something here in the future, Lewis wonders, is one of the more overtly gay drivers here going to end up in his bed one day, maybe one of _his_ _own_ drivers, if he winds up as a team boss. The thought of another man's hands on Nico makes Lewis feel sick, the thought of someone touching him the way he has, learning all the things that make Nico feel good. He has four championships now, all hard fought, but maybe, maybe he'd trade one for Nico. Maybe he'd trade one to keep this alive for more than a weekend far from home, for a lifetime. If he had the chance.

“Yeah I'm with Nico. But just not on the record yeah. I'll be at Brackley, I'll be wherever you want me to be but just…can we keep this quiet.”

“You're giving me a headache here you know. He drags you away at Silverstone and now what.”

“We're working on our friendship,” Lewis replies. It's sort of true, almost.

“Just friendship?”

God, what the hell has Susie said to him?

“Yeah, what else. Look, I need to go. I'll see you in Stuttgart in a few days.”

“Lewis…”

“You've got your championship, I've got mine. Just give me some time to myself.”

“I will, I will, just…Lewis you two were never good for each other, not in any way.”

Lewis closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He doesn't need Toto to spell that out for him. He hangs up the call, turning his attention back to Nico, who is deep in conversation with the media. The journalist interviewing him is beautiful, her long dark hair wild with the Hong Kong humidity and an intensity in her eyes, a passion for Formula E that Lewis can see is rubbing off on Nico as he responds with such enthusiasm.  In Lewis’ mind she transforms into Vivian briefly and he has to turn away; it’s petty but he wants Nico completely to himself, wants every bit of their attention to be focussed on each other and no one else.

He texts Nico to say he's heading back to the hotel, throwing himself down on the bed when he gets there. He should probably pack some things, they only have a few more hours until their flight to London and as usual his clothes are strewn everywhere. They're flying back together but the thought of it fills Lewis with dread, being with Nico for that length of time but having to revert to their public roles, being unable to touch him, to be with him how he longs to be.


	15. Chapter 15

“They gave you another replica, huh?” Nico says, gesturing towards the trophy that sits on the kitchen counter-top, Lewis’ name on there a fourth time, 2017 etched beside it. “I gave the real thing back weeks ago. Maybe I should've kept hold of it, engraved it myself for you.”

“You wouldn't want to spoil the ceremony of me being crowned champion at the FIA Gala.” Lewis laughs.

“You told me you only went to those events for the free food.”

“Well, yeah that whole thing kinda lost its shine a long time ago, man.” He smiles affectionately at Nico. It's the first time they've seen each other since getting off the flight in London, both of them going their separate ways, caught up in different ventures as the year draws to a close. The Nico of Hong Kong is still very much in evidence now though, something changed in him there, Lewis realises. He knows that whatever Nico has figured out it's kind of irrelevant when it comes to the two of them. His mind drifts back to an afternoon they'd spent in Macau before flying home, how it had reminded him of their first trip there so many years before when they were in GP3.

Nico walks over to where Lewis is standing, looking out at the majesty of the evening. He slides his arms around Lewis, resting his chin on the older man’s shoulder, sagging against him for a moment. “I meant the congratulations you know,” Nico whispers, “you fought hard this year.”

“It was fun. It was...different. I don't know, weird, without you. I don't know how much longer I can carry on. Racing I mean.” It's true for other areas of his life as well. The closet is too dark and lonely a place for someone as vibrant as Lewis.

“You've more championships in you.”

Lewis turns in Nico's arms, back against the cool glass of the door.

“Yeah. Yeah I know. Just not as much fun without you, not as much fire,” he says. “I need to figure some things out, take some time away from Monaco, for myself.” Nico looks up into his eyes, and it feels as though he’s seeing a more serious, grown-up version of Lewis than he’s witnessed in a long time. His head spins with a thousand thoughts, before settling on one single thread. “This is really it, isn’t it?”

Lewis turns away, coughing as he wipes a hand over his face. His hair is getting unruly again, soft tumble of curls that Nico has learned he loves to have pulled just a little. It’s only now that Nico takes in his surroundings properly, focus always on Lewis when they’re together lately, so that he didn’t even notice when he entered the apartment what a transitional state it’s in. At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that it was the typical homecoming after months of travelling, suitcases half unpacked and clothes draped over the backs of chairs, bundle of electricals in the middle of the dining table. It is with a strange sense of losing control that Nico realises what all of this in fact represents, not settling back home but packing up for good, moving on. Isn't this what he'd wanted, though - an end to it? He'd fought against the idea that he wanted anything with Lewis up until a couple of months ago but the thought of him not being here anymore fills the German with dread.

“I’m not giving the apartment up, I just - I thought I’d relocate to L.A. for a while, get my head together and sort some shit out, you know. I can't...we can't - fuck, Nico, I feel like I'm losing my mind. ” He is interrupted then by the sound of Nico’s phone ringing, stands back looking the other way while Nico answers it, trying not to listen to Vivian’s voice.

“I need to go, they're erm, decorating the tree.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I thought you were heading to Ibiza for Christmas?”

“We are, but not for another couple of weeks. Vivian wanted to decorate the apartment here as well. I bought you something, actually. That's why I came up here.” Nico gestures to the small rectangular shaped present he'd placed on the kitchen worktop when he walked in, simply wrapped in brown paper and with a red ribbon tied around it.

“Thanks, man. I haven't even thought about Christmas yet.” he doesn't want to, to be honest. 

“That's okay. Well, it's not much anyway.”

Nico taps his knuckles on the wall lightly, trying to figure out what it is that he needs to say. This is what he wanted, when it comes down to it, to have the order and balance restored to his life, to have the complication of his feelings for Lewis taken away. He’s been fighting against those unwelcome emotions for most of the year yet when it comes down to it, Lewis looking at him the way that he used to all those years ago when he lost a race, as if there’s a little chip of metal under the skin working its way ever closer to his heart, splintering on the way, he can’t take the thought that this might be it.

He takes a step towards his former teammate, former best friend, a hand at his neck and their lips meeting softly. The gift was supposed to say it all, but Nico can't leave without more, not knowing that Lewis is leaving Monaco.

“I love you,” Nico whispers cruelly, shared breaths and Lewis’ pulse beneath his fingertips. The ghostly echo of those words will stay with Lewis through late nights and loneliness, warmth on the other side of the world. This is what he’s been waiting to hear all his life, he realises now. Since the days they karted together, lying awake in shared hotel rooms trying desperately to ignore the heat in his belly as he glanced over at his friend, blond hair on the pillow and eyelashes dark against his skin. So often at Mercedes Lewis’ words had been spoken in anger and exasperation, when really underneath it all was a hopeless dream he was trying to bury.

Lewis doesn’t say it back, not this time. The words stick in his throat and all he can think, the thought turning over and over in his mind, is what if he’d got there first. What might have been if fear hadn’t ruled him back then. He kisses Nico again, dipping his head to mouth at his neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin. Nico moans and clutches him close and Lewis almost throws everything he’s worked for all his life away, almost offers himself as the equivalent of the traditional mistress waiting upstairs ready and willing for whenever Nico can sneak away for half an hour. Except his pride would never allow it.

“I have to go,” Nico says weakly, hands still on him. Then there’s air between them, distance.

“Have a good Christmas yeah,” Lewis says to Nico’s back.

“Thanks. I’ll see you, yes?”

“Yeah,” Lewis replies, hand clenched against the back of the sofa.

The apartment feels less like home than it ever has. Lewis walks through the airy rooms, fingers gliding over the keys of the piano in the lounge. He sits at it poised to play, but the notes don’t come, as if they’ve all floated off into the air and abandoned him to this vague out-of-body sense of numbness. It’s still only 8PM and he knows he should do something, eat something or work on some lyrics, throw some more stuff in boxes. But there’s a faint feeling of nausea lingering in his stomach and the removals people are coming in to finish up the packing anyway. He lies down on the bed, Roscoe and Coco curling up next to him as he stares up at the ceiling trying to catch hold of some positive thoughts. Being World Champion again is the one he settles on, but it has never seemed to matter less.

***

Nico closes the door behind him, leaning back against it as he tries to gather himself. Time is a rare luxury as a parent though and at the sound of his arrival Alaïa comes running through the apartment, a glimmering golden star clutched in her hand. “Papa, help me to put the star on the tree.” He crouches down before her, although it feels like falling, waking up from a dream. Her body is warm in his arms, her curls soft against his face. She feels like pure innocence, untainted and with her little heart intact. He hopes no one ever breaks it, would fight anyone who ever makes her feel like this. He bites the inside of his cheek as he hugs her tightly, trying to pull himself together even as her presence can’t fully drag him away from the floor above, where Lewis is packing up his things to leave the country.

Alaïa is tugging on his arm, eager to show him how she’s helped with the tree, but it’s as if he’s forgotten how to move, all of it hurtling through his mind.

“Give Papa a moment sweetie, he’s very tired.” Vivian is saying, but more immediately he hears Tony’s voice in his ear from through the years.

_ That’s P1 Nico _

_ Remember to drink Nico _

_ Let Lewis past please, he’s quicker than you _

_ You’re world champion, Nico, you did it. _

They did it, him and Lewis, they did it just like they always said they would. It’s the good moments he’ll remember, he’ll teach himself to forget this feeling eventually.

“I’m okay, it’s alright.” He loosens his hold on Alaïa and looks up, locking eyes with Vivian. There are tears in her eyes and for all Nico's attempts at pretending it meant nothing he knows that she knew all along, that she let them write their own messy conclusion.

Standing, he hoists Alaïa into his arms and takes the star from her. “Why don’t you show me how you and Mama have decorated the tree.”   

***

The sun rises in clear skies over Nice, one of those crisp early winter mornings that makes Lewis think of England somehow, even with the palm trees and the calm of the ocean lapping against the beachfront of the Promenade des Anglais as the car passes along it. His eyes linger on one of the signs as they turn into the airport, the quick drop-off zone aptly named ‘kiss and fly’. It conjures up all kinds of soppy British rom-com images, fond farewells and just-one-more kisses. He looks down at his phone but there are no messages, no missed calls. Nico won’t ask him to stay.

The Bombardier jet is gleaming cherry red in the morning sun, engines waiting to kick into life, powering forward across the Atlantic. Always forward now, Lewis decides.

“You wanna play?” Spinz asks, gesturing at the Xbox.

“Nah, man. Maybe later. Think I'm gonna get some rest.”

Lewis closes his eyes, leaning back in the soft leather airplane seat. Roscoe looks up from his place strapped in at Lewis’ side, trying to impart some empathy with a mournful little whine. 

The plane is taxiing along the runway when Lewis’ remembers the present. He reaches for the parcel, tearing it open with shaky hands as the jet wobbles into its ascent, stomach knotted in tight loopy somersaults as the altitude rises, letting the paper fall to the floor to reveal the DVD from the market in Hong Kong. The cover photo is the two of them in 2013 when things were still good, no trace of animosity on their faces. He turns it over, running his fingers over the glossy plastic as he wonders if anyone will ever know the real truth of their story, who they were and what they’ve become. The jet is high in the air, surrounded by cotton wool cloud when he opens the case and finds that Nico has slotted a picture of the two of them in behind the front cover, a selfie from Hong Kong – the two of them with their arms around each other, Lewis pressing his lips to Nico’s cheek. They could be anyone, just another couple in love. Lewis slides the photo out carefully.  _ Happy Christmas, from one world champion to another –  _ the words are scrawled on the reverse in Nico’s looping handwriting.  

He reads it a couple of times and even though it’s been a year it feels as if it’s only just sinking in, the enormity of what they’ve both achieved. “We really fucking did it,” he shakes his head in disbelief, tracing his thumb over the image of Nico’s face one more time before slipping the DVD into the seat pocket and closing his eyes to sleep.


	16. Epilogue

The chill of Paris in December is a sharp contrast to the sticky humidity of Hong Kong, moisture in the air and Christmas lights dotted all the way along the Champs Elysee as the car makes its way through the traffic towards the Automobile Club de France.

It’s an emotional evening, being inducted into the FIA Hall of Fame, even more so than Nico expected. Sometimes he still can’t quite believe that he has a place here amongst so many legends, his name up there on the wall beside his dad's, Mika’s, Senna’s, people he grew up in awe of and watched from the grandstands or on TV with Lewis at his side as they talked and dreamed of one day achieving the same greatness. There are tears welling up in his eyes as the presentation turns to Michael, even as they were never particularly close. They are, all of them, so very near to the edge at all times, so close to success yet on the precipice of failure.

Sometimes Nico thinks of that last race in Abu Dhabi, the passion and desire that had burned within him as he pushed for the overtake on Max. If he hadn’t managed it, it could so easily have all slipped away again and his helmet wouldn’t be on display here, his name wouldn’t be etched into the history of his sport – and Lewis – where would they be now? Still fighting, still not talking?

He pauses in front of Lewis’ helmet, his heart beating faster in a way that he’s come to appreciate rather than fear. The screen above is showing a montage from his winning seasons and Nico feels a swelling sense of pride.

There’s a touch on his shoulder and then he’s turning, being pulled into an enthusiastic hug by Fernando Alonso. It’s been ages since they’ve spoken and it feels good to see the Spaniard again, to be part of this whole thing.

“You have no regrets uh, looking to the future?” Fernando asks him. Nico can still see the drive in his eyes, the need to get that third title.

“It’s been a weird year, but no, no regrets.” 

“And next?”

“Well,” Nico smiles, “maybe you’ll see me managing my own team somewhere one day.”

It’s snowing lightly when Nico steps out onto the street later in the evening, champagne gone to his head a little as he records a vlog for his YouTube channel on the drive back to the hotel.

“I can’t believe I managed to win the world championship,” he tells the camera, but really it’s to himself more than to anyone who might be viewing it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thanks so much for reading and commenting, hope you enjoyed it and sorry they didn't ride off into the sunset together.


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